I've seen XML before, but I've never seen anything like EDI.
How do I read this file and get the data that I need? I see things like ~, REF, N1, N2, N4 but have no idea what any of this stuff means.
I am looking for Examples and Documentations.
Where can I find them?
Aslo
EDI guide i found says that it is based on " ANSI ASC X12/ ver. 4010".
Should I search form X12 ?
Kindly help.
Several of these other answers are very good. I'll try to fill in some things they haven't mentioned.
EDI is a set of standards, the most common of which are:
ANSI X12 (popular in the states)
EDIFACT (popular in Europe)
Sounds like you're looking at X12 version 4010. That's the most widely used (in my experience, anyway) version. There are lots and lots of different versions.
The file, or properly "interchange," is made up of Segments and Elements (and sometimes subelements). Each segment begins with a two- or three-word identifier (ISA, GS, ST, N1, REF).
The structure for all documents begins and ends with an envelope. The envelope is usually made up of the ISA segment and the GS segments. There can be more than one GS segment per file, but there should only be one ISA segment per file (note the should, not everyone plays by the rules).
The ISA is a special segment. Whereas all the other segments are delimited, and therefore can be of varying lenghts, the ISA segment is of fixed width. This is because it tells you how to read the rest of the file.
Start with the last three characters of the ISA segment. Those will tell you the element delimiter, the sub-element delimiter, and the segment delimiter. Here's an example ISA line.
ISA:00: :00: :01:1515151515 :01:5151515151 :041201:1217:U:00403:000032123:0:P:*~
In this case, the ":" is the element delimiter, "*" is a subelement delimiter, and "~" the segment delimiter. It's much easier if you're just trying to look at a file to put linebreaks after each segment delimiter (~).
The ISA also tells you who the document is from and to, what the version is (00403, which is also known as 4030), and the interchange control number (0000321233). The other stuff is probably not important to you at this stage.
This document is from sender "01:1515151515" and to receiver "01:5151515151". So what's with the "01:"? Well, this introduces an important concept in EDI, the qualifier. Several elements have qualifiers, which tell you what type of data the next element is. In this case, the 01 is supposed to be a Dunn and Bradstreet number. Other qualifiers for the ISA05 and ISA07 elements are 12 for phone number, and ZZ for "user defined". You'll find the concept of qualifiers all over EDI segments. A decent rule of thumb is that if it's two characters, it's a qualifier. In order to know what all the qualifiers mean, you'll need a standards guide (either in hard copy from the EDI standards body, or in some software).
The next line is the GS. This is a functional group (a way to group like documents together within an interchange.) For instance, you can have several purchase orders, and several functional acknowledgements within an ISA. These should be placed in separate functional groups (GS segments). You can figure out what type of documents are in a GS segment by looking at the first GS01 element.
GS:PO:9988776655:1122334455:20041201:1217:128:X:004030
Besides the document type, you can see the from (9988776655) and to (1122334455) again. This time they're using different identifiers, which is legal, because you may be receiving an interchange on behalf of someone else (if you're an intermediary, for instance). You can also see the version number again, this time with the trailing "0" (0004030). Use significant digits logic to strip off the leading zeros. Why is there an extra zero here and not in the ISA? I don't know. Lastly this GS segment also has it's own identifier, 128.
That's it for the beginning of the envelope. After that there will be a loop of documents beginning with ST. In this case they'd all be POs, which have a code (850), so the line would start with ST:850:blablabla
The envelope stuff ends with a GE segment which references the GS identifier (128) so you know which segment is being closed. Then comes an IEA which similarly closes out the ISA.
GE:1:128~
IEA:1:000032123~
That's an overview of the structure and how to read it. To understand it you'll need a reference book or software so you understand the codes, lots and lots of time, and lots and lots of practice. Good luck, and post again if you have more specific questions.
Wow, flashbacks. It's been over sixteen years ...
In principle, each line is a "segment", and the identifiers are the beginning of the line is a segment identifier. Each segment contains "elements" which are essentially positional fields. They are delimited by "element delimiters".
Different segments mean different things, and can indicate looping constructs, repeats, etc.
You need to get a current version of the standard for the basic parsing, and then you need the data dictionary to describe the content of the document you are dealing with, and then you might need an industry profile, implementation guide, or similar to deal with the conventions for the particular document type in your environment.
Examples? Not current, but I'm sure you could find a whole bunch using your search engine of choice. Once you get the basic segment/element parsing done, you're dealing with your application level data, and I don't know how much a general example will help you there.
EDI is a file format for structured text files, used by lots of larger organisations and companies for standard database exchange. It tends to be much shorter than XML which used to be great when data packets had to be small. Many organisations still use it, since many mainframe systems use EDI instead of XML.
With EDI messages, you're dealing with text messages that match a specific format. This would be similar to an XML schema, but EDI doesn't really have a standardized schema language. EDI messages themselves aren't really human-readable while most specifications aren't really machine-readable. This is basically the advantage of XML, where both the XML and it's schema can be read by humans and machines.
Chances are that when you're doing electronic banking through some client-side software (not browser-based) then you might already have several EDI files on your system. Banks still prefer EDI over XML to send over transaction data, although many also use their own custom text-based formats.
To understand EDI, you'll have to understand the data first, plus the EDI standard that you want to follow.
Assuming the data stream starts with “ISA”, towards the beginning there should be a section “~ST*” followed by three numeric digits. If you can post these three digits, I can probably provide you with more information. Also, knowing the industry would be helpful. For example, healthcare uses 270, 271, 276, 277 and a few others.
Related
COuld you please recommend some materials to learn more about EDI and its professional language such as Test ISA Qualifier: 14
Test ISA Sender ID:
Test GS Sender ID:
I am totally a beginner and would like to learn more about this topic
Also, which program I could use to convert EDI message type to a different format ( for instance from X12 to XML) from FDI to AS2 communication method ( not sure if you understand in this context)
Thank you a lot for your response.
Kim
Your question is quite broad, so I'll try to just give some information that may help.
Most EDI exchanges tends to be undertaken by partnering with an EDI company, rather than self-built. This is partly because there's a lot of complexity involved, partly because standards aren't always publicly available, and partly because you often need to use a variety of transport mechanisms, including private networks. I note you've mentioned AS2, but again, you'd normally get a third party to either manage that for you, or to provide software to do so.
There are various EDI standards bodies. You've mentioned X12, which is most common if you're in North America, but their specifications have to be bought, and are quite expensive. However, you may be able to get a specification from your trading partner.
There are a number of proprietary products that will translate EDI formats to other formats (such as XML), but they usually require some expertise to use. If you have a common X12 format, and you wish to translate it to a common integration format (say an XML format defined by a commonly used accounting package - I'm not sure what "FDI" is), you may be able to find something off the shelf.
Increasingly, most businesses wish to outsource their EDI to a managed service who will look after everything for you. The costs are not usually prohibitive to even small traders.
My answer assumes you know a lot about XML, I apologize if that is not correct. But, if you want to learn EDI and ANSI, you should learn XML as its hierarchical structure fits well with ANSI formats.
Learning "Electronic Data Interchange" using ANSI X12 transaction sets which contain ISA and GS Segments (a segment is a variable length data structure) can begin with learning which industry uses which transaction sets and which version (https://www.edi2xml.com or https://x12.org). X12.org allows you to download sample ANSI files.
Materials Management uses specific ANSI X12 transactions (Purchase Orders and Invoices) which are different from the needs of a hospital business office or an insurance claim adjudication company which uses X12N HIPAA-mandated transaction sets (www.wpc-edi.com) in USA.
All ANSI segments are made up of "elements" - and "Qualifier" is an element within many segments. It denotes a specific value that identifies or qualifies the data being transferred - like a value that tells the Receiver what type of Insurance Plan is being paid by the insurance company. A "Sender ID" is also an ANSI element - in ISA and GS segments. It generally contains a number or alpha-numeric that identifies the EDI sender of the EDI transaction - may or may not be the originator of the information.
For most workplaces, a third-party software and/or vendor is generally used to send/receive the necessary transactions electronically.
I worked in healthcare for years, and I got started understanding the necessary ANSI transaction sets by asking the insurance companies for a copy of their specific Implementation Guide for a specific transaction(s). This may only be a document that shows the differences between their transactions and the HIPAA recommendations.
I have also found older, pre-HIPAA (before 1996) versions of ANSI transaction guides (developer's documentation) on the internet.
Once you have an understanding of which ANSI transaction sets are used in your industry, then try to find the appropriate ANSI transaction set associated like 837/835 for a hospital, 850/855 for purchasing or warehouse.
When you know which transactions are used for which purpose, and you understand its hierarchical structure, then try taking them apart using the programmer/developer documentation (Implementation Guide or Standard) you have found or purchased. Your trading partners may have documentation guides they will send you. If you have no "trading partners" yet, then look online or in book stores for documentation.
If you have any programming experience, the Implementation Guide or ANSI Standard documentation are the programmer's tools for understanding the transaction set function and segment layout.
If you don't have any programming skills, this would be a good project to learn some basic input and output logic - to convert an ANSI transaction file into a well-formed XML document of your design, or into a CSV or Tab-Delimited file.
With some basic input, output and data manipulation logic, you can convert any ANSI X12 file into a well-formed XML document - where ANSI segments are converted (mostly) to empty XML elements which contain Attributes that hold the ANSI Segment's data, like so:
For this ANSI stream:
ISA*00* *00* *ZZ*123456789012345*ZZ*123456789012346*080503*1705*>*00501*000010216*0*T*:~GS*HS*12345*12345*20080503*1705*20213*X*005010X279A1~ST*270*1235*005010X279A1~ (to end of file after the IEA segment)
Convert it to a flat file with CRLF characters after each tilde (~):
ISA*00* *00* (skipping elements to simplify) *00501*000010216*0*T*:~
GS*HS*12345*12345*20080503*1705*20213*X*005010X279A1~
ST*270*1235*005010X279A1~
(continue to end of file, after the IEA segment)
Then, convert the new ANSI flat file to an XML document with Attributes like:
<?xml version="1.0"?> (this must be your first line in the XML document)
<ISA a1="00" a2=" " a3="00" (skipping attributes to simplify) >
<GS a1="HS" a2="12345" a3="12345" a4="20080503" a5="1705" a6="20213" a7="X" a8= "005010X279A1" >
<ST a1="270" a2="1235" a3="005010X279A1" > (ISA, GS, ST are not empty elements)
(continue to end of file with empty elements like:)
<
<ST ... /> (closing xml tag for the ST element, convert the "SE")
<GS ... /> (closing xml tag for the GS element, convert the "GE")
<ISA a1="1" a2="000010216" /> (Closing xml tag for the ISA element, convert the "IEA")
Like I said, the output is mostly made up of "empty" XML element tags, but the SE, GS and IEA ANSI elements must be converted to become the closing XML element tags for the "ISA", "GS" and "ST" XML elements - since these three are NOT empty XML elements. They contain other XML elements.
There are many examples of other interior ANSI elements which should also not be "empty" XML elements, since in the ANSI form they have a parent/child relationship with other subordinate ANSI elements. Think of an insurance claim (not my example) containing a lot of patient demographic data and many medical charges - in ANSI these segments are child elements of a "CLM" Segment. In XML, the "CLM" would not be "empty" - containing child XML elements, for example, the "NM1" and "SVC".
The first "CLM" XML tag would be closed, enclosing all its "children" elements - when the next "CLM" (a patient's insurance claim) is encountered. In ANSI, this "closing" is not apparent, but only signaled by the existence of a following "CLM" segment.
To know if you have created a well-formed XML document, try to browse and display the XML output file with a web browser. If there are errors in the XML, it will stop displaying at the error.
Once you have learned the data structure (layout) of the ANSI files, you can then learn to create a simple well-formed XML document, and with some "XSL" Transformation skills, to translate it into a browser-friendly displayable document.
<?xml version="1.0"?> must be the first line of your XML document so that
a browser can recognize and know what to do with the XML markup. It has no
equivalent in the ANSI file.
I have been working with EDI documents for the past few months and dealt with different EDI formats like 810 (Invoice), 850 (PO), 855 (PO Ack) etc.
I just wonder where does this Segment names comes from? What is the exact definition for each segment? Like ISA, GS, GE, IEA etc.
Also beginning of a segment possess different values for each document formats. Like BIG for 810, BEG for 850 etc. Where does these abbreviations comes from?
They come from the implementation guides. This is an example of one of them: http://www.att.com/Common/docs/EDI_820_Guide.pdf
Traditional EDI (segments/elements) documents are defined by a governing standards body, usually ANSI (X12) or EDIFACT (U.N. standard). (TRADACOMS and HL7 are also standards bodies) These entities created and published the document types, enveloping, segment names and definitions, element data types and size, component elements, etc. http://www.x12.org/ is the main site for the X12 standard (predominantly found in the US). EDIFACT can be found here: http://www.unece.org/cefact/edifact/welcome.html. These groups are repsonsible for pushing the standard further as business requirements evolve and new data attributes are created. Version 4010 in the ANSI X12 was the first Y2K compliant X12 standard released. There have been many versions released since then, but many still use version 4010 as their standard.
The decision makers made some segments somewhat "mnemonic", so that you can easily determine what kind of information is in the segment. BEG is a good example of this, as common sense would dictate it is "Beginning" of the transaction. Of course, this doesn't apply consistently in the standard. N1 for Names and Addresses, TD3 and TD5 for routing and lading qty.
The end users would then devise their own guideline as to how they implemented the standard. In some cases you'll find some bastardization of the standard to fit special case needs.
Most translators come with some kind of built-in Dictionary Viewer where you can browse. X12 is mostly closed-source and the commercial translator makers pay X12 to include the library. EDIFACT (which is not your example above) is published free of charge. There is a free tool from Liaison called EDI Notepad that you can download and get a sense of the syntax and validation. That can be found here: https://www.liaison.com/products/integrate/edi-notepad/edi-dictionary-viewer/
I am implementing an EDI-x12 header parser (only to parse "ISA" segment)
I notice that there are several character sets can be used.
My question is that how do I know that which one is used of incoming edi-x12 message so that I know how to interpret the message?
actually there is no such thing as a character set in x12.
this is up to the partners/interchange agreement.
but as X12 is mainly used in USA, it is us-ascii (almost always).
(but .....some companies send x12 as EBCEDIC ;-)))
If you're only doing ANSI X12, the ISA segment should be easy for you to parse, as it is a fixed length.
Position 4 will give you the element delimiter (field delimiter).
Position 106 will give you the record terminator.
Position 105 will give you the subelement delimiter
You probably won't have much use for the subelement delimiter, depending on the document type.
Once you figure out what your field delimiters are and then the record delimiter, it should be a snap.
(Standard disclaimer: there are many great tools out there in the form of data translators that make this job much simpler than having a programmer reinvent the wheel. Some of these tools are even open source and free. Just sayin'...)
Hope this helps.
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I am a college student getting my Computer Science degree. A lot of my fellow students really haven't done a lot of programming. They've done their class assignments, but let's be honest here those questions don't really teach you how to program.
I have had several other students ask me questions about how to parse things, and I'm never quite sure how to explain it to them. Is it best to start just going line by line looking for substrings, or just give them the more complicated lecture about using proper lexical analysis, etc. to create tokens, use BNF, and all of that other stuff? They never quite understand it when I try to explain it.
What's the best approach to explain this without confusing them or discouraging them from actually trying.
I'd explain parsing as the process of turning some kind of data into another kind of data.
In practice, for me this is almost always turning a string, or binary data, into a data structure inside my Program.
For example, turning
":Nick!User#Host PRIVMSG #channel :Hello!"
into (C)
struct irc_line {
char *nick;
char *user;
char *host;
char *command;
char **arguments;
char *message;
} sample = { "Nick", "User", "Host", "PRIVMSG", { "#channel" }, "Hello!" }
Parsing is the process of analyzing text made of a sequence of tokens to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given (more or less) formal grammar.
The parser then builds a data structure based on the tokens. This data structure can then be used by a compiler, interpreter or translator to create an executable program or library.
(source: wikimedia.org)
If I gave you an english sentence, and asked you to break down the sentence into its parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.), you would be parsing the sentence.
That's the simplest explanation of parsing I can think of.
That said, parsing is a non-trivial computational problem. You have to start with simple examples, and work your way up to the more complex.
What is parsing?
In computer science, parsing is the process of analysing text to determine if it belongs to a specific language or not (i.e. is syntactically valid for that language's grammar). It is an informal name for the syntactic analysis process.
For example, suppose the language a^n b^n (which means same number of characters A followed by the same number of characters B). A parser for that language would accept AABB input and reject the AAAB input. That is what a parser does.
In addition, during this process a data structure could be created for further processing. In my previous example, it could, for instance, to store the AA and BB in two separate stacks.
Anything that happens after it, like giving meaning to AA or BB, or transform it in something else, is not parsing. Giving meaning to parts of an input sequence of tokens is called semantic analysis.
What isn't parsing?
Parsing is not transform one thing into another. Transforming A into B, is, in essence, what a compiler does. Compiling takes several steps, parsing is only one of them.
Parsing is not extracting meaning from a text. That is semantic analysis, a step of the compiling process.
What is the simplest way to understand it?
I think the best way for understanding the parsing concept is to begin with the simpler concepts. The simplest one in language processing subject is the finite automaton. It is a formalism to parsing regular languages, such as regular expressions.
It is very simple, you have an input, a set of states and a set of transitions. Consider the following language built over the alphabet { A, B }, L = { w | w starts with 'AA' or 'BB' as substring }. The automaton below represents a possible parser for that language whose all valid words starts with 'AA' or 'BB'.
A-->(q1)--A-->(qf)
/
(q0)
\
B-->(q2)--B-->(qf)
It is a very simple parser for that language. You start at (q0), the initial state, then you read a symbol from the input, if it is A then you move to (q1) state, otherwise (it is a B, remember the remember the alphabet is only A and B) you move to (q2) state and so on. If you reach (qf) state, then the input was accepted.
As it is visual, you only need a pencil and a piece of paper to explain what a parser is to anyone, including a child. I think the simplicity is what makes the automata the most suitable way to teaching language processing concepts, such as parsing.
Finally, being a Computer Science student, you will study such concepts in-deep at theoretical computer science classes such as Formal Languages and Theory of Computation.
Have them try to write a program that can evaluate arbitrary simple arithmetic expressions. This is a simple problem to understand but as you start getting deeper into it a lot of basic parsing starts to make sense.
Parsing is about READING data in one format, so that you can use it to your needs.
I think you need to teach them to think like this. So, this is the simplest way I can think of to explain parsing for someone new to this concept.
Generally, we try to parse data one line at a time because generally it is easier for humans to think this way, dividing and conquering, and also easier to code.
We call field to every minimum undivisible data. Name is field, Age is another field, and Surname is another field. For example.
In a line, we can have various fields. In order to distinguish them, we can delimit fields by separators or by the maximum length assign to each field.
For example:
By separating fields by comma
Paul,20,Jones
Or by space (Name can have 20 letters max, age up to 3 digits, Jones up to 20 letters)
Paul 020Jones
Any of the before set of fields is called a record.
To separate between a delimited field record we need to delimit record. A dot will be enough (though you know you can apply CR/LF).
A list could be:
Michael,39,Jordan.Shaquille,40,O'neal.Lebron,24,James.
or with CR/LF
Michael,39,Jordan
Shaquille,40,O'neal
Lebron,24,James
You can say them to list 10 nba (or nlf) players they like. Then, they should type them according to a format. Then make a program to parse it and display each record. One group, can make list in a comma-separated format and a program to parse a list in a fixed size format, and viceversa.
Parsing to me is breaking down something into meaningful parts... using a definable or predefined known, common set of part "definitions".
For programming languages there would be keyword parts, usable punctuation sequences...
For pumpkin pie it might be something like the crust, filling and toppings.
For written languages there might be what a word is, a sentence, what a verb is...
For spoken languages it might be tone, volume, mood, implication, emotion, context
Syntax analysis (as well as common sense after all) would tell if what your are parsing is a pumpkinpie or a programming language. Does it have crust? well maybe it's pumpkin pudding or perhaps a spoken language !
One thing to note about parsing stuff is there are usually many ways to break things into parts.
For example you could break up a pumpkin pie by cutting it from the center to the edge or from the bottom to the top or with a scoop to get the filling out or by using a sledge hammer or eating it.
And how you parse things would determine if doing something with those parts will be easy or hard.
In the "computer languages" world, there are common ways to parse text source code. These common methods (algorithims) have titles or names. Search the Internet for common methods/names for ways to parse languages. Wikipedia can help in this regard.
In linguistics, to divide language into small components that can be analyzed. For example, parsing this sentence would involve dividing it into words and phrases and identifying the type of each component (e.g.,verb, adjective, or noun).
Parsing is a very important part of many computer science disciplines. For example, compilers must parse source code to be able to translate it into object code. Likewise, any application that processes complex commands must be able to parse the commands. This includes virtually all end-user applications.
Parsing is often divided into lexical analysis and semantic parsing. Lexical analysis concentrates on dividing strings into components, called tokens, based on punctuationand other keys. Semantic parsing then attempts to determine the meaning of the string.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/parse.html
Simple explanation: Parsing is breaking a block of data into smaller pieces (tokens) by following a set of rules (using delimiters for example),
so that this data could be processes piece by piece (managed, analysed, interpreted, transmitted, ets).
Examples: Many applications (like Spreadsheet programs) use CSV (Comma Separated Values) file format to import and export data. CSV format makes it possible for the applications to process this data with a help of a special parser.
Web browsers have special parsers for HTML and CSS files. JSON parsers exist. All special file formats must have some parsers designed specifically for them.
I've read XML or CSV before, but I've never seen anything like EDI.
How do I read this file and get the data that I need? I see things like ~, REF, N1, N2, N4 but have no idea what any of this stuff means.
I've seen somethings about x12 but don't know if thats what I have or not, how can I tell?
-- update
Thanks guys for the quick responses. Does anyone know of a parser that I can use in .Net? In the long run, I'm going to be converting this EDI file to a CSV file...
EDI messages are defined by the X12 standard.
If you look for X12 parsers, you can find helpful information.
For example, http://code.activestate.com/recipes/299485/
Those are ANSI X12 Files the standard is managed here http://www.wpc-edi.com/
Brief tutorial on structure
Hierarchy = Loops-> Segments -> Elements -> Sub Elements.
Loops are bounded either by control segments or logically based on the standard.
Segments are separated by the segment terminator, by default ~
Elements are separated by the element separator, by default *
Sub Elements are separated by sub element separator, by default :
EDI is a delimited file format. You have to know both the line delimiter and the column delimiter (for lack of a better answer). You might, for example, see an EDI file with the following format (from http://www.slik.co.nz/HTML_help/edi_file_format.htm):
HDR|6||||
DTL|1|ABC|xyz|123|1
DTL|13|ABC|animal|334|1
DTL|11|ABC|sfdk|432|2
DTL|12|ABC|wewdc|3|1
DTL|14|ABC|qwdx|416|4
The first line is the header and tells you there are six records. The other lines are detail lines.
X12 is one standard used by EDI. You will see X12 used commonly in healthcare. If you have X12, you can examine the X12 standard to figure out how to parse.
EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange...
It's not a specific format per-se. Generally speaking it's a flat text file of data that usually has an associated published specification. For example: "Position 23-34 is the original price as a monetary value"
You really won't be able to do anything useful with an EDI file if you don't have the defined specification that goes along with it.
Once you get the specification, I believe how to read the file will be quite clear.
Generally the process is:
1. Read/Parse the EDI file.
2. Perform any processing/transformation on that data that you need to.
3. Persist it into your local system format (tables, other flat files, whatever).
Sorry there's not much more we could tell you unfortunately.
EDI stands for “Electronic Data Interchange.” The practice involves using computer technology to exchange information – or data – electronically between two organizations, called “Trading Partners.” Technically, EDI is a set of standards that define common formats for the information so it can be exchanged in this way.
Read more: http://www.1edisource.com/learn-about-edi/what-is-edi#ixzz2g5E4p2ET
EDI is just a flat file that contain some type of hierarchy. Usually companies buy EDI translator software to parse those files and extract data and then integrate with other systems. You can also use some type of service and they will do that for you. You can try to use Amosoft EDI Serices (www.amosoft.com) and they can help you with that.