Data Type Library Maintenance

 

The Add/Edit Data Type File feature allows creation of new data type files, and maintenance of existing ones. It is accessed from the Maint/Datatypes/Add/Edit Data type File option on the main menu. Selecting this option brings up a form entitled MWB Data type Maintenance with its own main menu.

 

View of the MWB data type library maintenance form

 

 

To start a new data type file:

Select File/New from the menu. Enter the appropriate HL7 (or other) version identifier in the HL7 Version field. When finished entering new data types (procedure described below), select File/Save, and save your new data type file to the MWB’s Lib folder. Alternatively you may select File/SaveAs to create a new version of the data type library, leaving the original library as it was.

 

To add data types to a data type library:

 

Entering a new data type

 

If this is a primitive or simple data type, once you have filled in the Mnemonic and Name fields, you may elect to save it. Do so by clicking on the Save Data Type icon  at the bottom of the form.

 

Assuming that you have saved a primitive data type at this point, select Data Type/Edit from the main menu. A list will be displayed showing all of the data types defined so far (one in this case). If you were actually starting a new data type file de novo, you would proceed to define all of your known primitive data types before proceeding to define the complex data types (discussed in the next section). The reason for this is that you need primitive data types defined before you can combine them to create the more complex data types.

 

Selecting a data type to edit

 

To add components to an existing data type:

Before continuing, open up an existing data type file so that there are existing data types to work with. Select File/Open from the main menu, and select a data type file (*.mdf) to work with – preferably the HL7 Datatypes.mdf file, which is not recommended for use any longer. Alternatively, you may copy any of the .mdf files, and work through this discussion with a clone of the original file. In any event, know that as long as you don’t select File/Save at the conclusion of your editing session, no changes will persist in the originally selected library.

 

 

Selecting an available data type

 

 

Editing component parameters for ‘YYYY’ data type

 

If you start to edit a data type, but decide to abandon the effort, you may press the Clear Definition button  which will clear the display. You may then select another data type to edit, or define a new one as described above.

 

Data type maintenance tool buttons

 

To make you additions/changes permanent within the library you must use the File/Save or File/SaveAs options on the main menu. It is recommended that you make back up copies of the data type libraries that were installed with the MWB before making any changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note:

In this proces, when editing an existing data type file, you are really working on a copy of the file. All the changes that you make during an edit session are made to the copy of the data type library file, not to the original. When you are finished with an editing session, you must select File/Save or File/SaveAs to commit your changes to the data type library file and thus make the changes permanent. If you elect to end the session without saving the file, all the changes made during the edit session will be abandoned, and the data type library file will remain as it was before the session was started.