Generating Batch HL7 messages requires working around the way that Chameleon normally treats the header segments since it treats it a little differently because of the MSH delimiter protocol. The easiest thing to do is to use two message definition files.

Setting Up the First VMD

The first message definition file should be set up similar to this sample VMD file: Sample Batch File. An Engine object can be generated from this message definition file, which makes it easy to generate the header and footer for each batch message group. Take a careful look at the Python scripts used to set up the standard default parameters in the definition file.

The Option window settings have to be customized to prevent Chameleon from putting in the delimiter characters.

Setting Up the Second VMD

The second message definition file should be set up like a normal VMD file and should contain the actual messages that you want to create.

To put in all together, you would need to generate the header, each one of the messages, the footer, and then concatenating them all together using standard string handling. Alternatively, the component parts can be written to a file one by one.