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# HL7 API: README
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Contents
--------

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Usage
2.1 Creating messages
2.2 Sending/receiving


1.0 Introduction
----------------

This is the PHP HL7 API. It is a very simple, but rather flexible API
for use in PHP applications. The API is a word for word translation of
the Perl Net-HL7 package, based on version 0.72.

The focus of this API is on providing functionality for the
composition, manipulation and decomposition of HL7 messages, not
providing hundreds of prefab HL7 messages. In HL7 terms: this API
focuses on the HL7 syntax, not the semantics. This makes the API
support all versions that use the classic HL7 syntax, that is,
versions untill 3.x. This API does not do XML!


2.0 Usage
---------

2.1 Creating messages
---------------------

To create an HL7 message, simply do this:

$msg =& new Net_HL7_Message();

this gives you an empty message, that doesn't containt ANY segments
(not even the header segment). You might also have a string
representation of your message at hand, in which case you can do this:

$msg =& new Net_HL7_Message(<your string>);

Make sure to escape any characters that have special meaning in PHP!


2.2 Sending/receiving
---------------------

A full example of sending and receiving a message is listed here,
assuming you have an HL7 server on your localhost, listening to port
12002 (you might want to use the hl7d from the Perl HL7 Toolkit
package as a simple test server; http://hl7toolkit.sourceforge.net/):

<?php
require_once "Net/HL7/Segments/MSH.php";
require_once "Net/HL7/Message.php";
require_once "Net/HL7/Connection.php";

$msg  =& new Net_HL7_Message();
$msg->addSegment(new Net_HL7_Segments_MSH());

$seg1 = new Net_HL7_Segment("PID");

$seg1->setField(3, "XXX");

$msg->addSegment($seg1);

echo "Trying to connect";

$conn = new Net_HL7_Connection("localhost", 12002);

if (! $conn) {
	echo "Couldn't connect!";
	exit -1;
}

echo "Sending message\n" . $msg->toString(1);

$resp = $conn->send($msg);

$resp || exit -1;

echo "Received answer\n" . $resp->toString(1);

$conn->close();
?>