Repetitions with the HL7 Groovy DSL

Accessing Repetitions

Groups, segments and fields may be repeatable. Parentheses like with regular method calls are used in order to obtain a certain element of a repeating structure.

    // Returns the first PATIENT group inside the second PATIENT_RESULT group
    def group = message.PATIENT_RESULT(1).PATIENT(0)

    // Returns the second NK1 segment
    def nk1   = group.NK1(1)

    // Access first NK1-5 field (phone)
    def phone = nk1[5](0)

Note that, unlike field numbers, repetitions are zero-based.

In order to get a repeating structure, simply omit the index so that it looks like a method call without parameters:

    // Returns a java.util.Iterable containing first PATIENT groups
    def group = message.PATIENT_RESULT()

    // Returns a java.util.Iterable containing all phone numbers of the first contact
    def phone = group.NK1(0)[5]()

Counting Repetitions

The number of repetitions are counted by simply using the count() method:

    // Use the DSL count method for counting the field repetitions
    int groups = message.count('PATIENT_RESULT')

    // or use the HAPI structure method for counting the structure repetitions
    // int groups = message.PATIENT_RESULTReps

    // Use the DSL count method for counting the field repetitions
    int phones = group.NK1(0).count(5)