Channel Source Components |
As described in the previous section, every Iguana channel has a source and a destination component. The source simply specifies where your data is coming from. Your data could be from a stream of HL7 messages, a set of database tables, etc. The complete list of source components currently available are described in the following table:
| Channel Source Component | Description |
|---|---|
| LLP Listener: | The source end of the channel will act as a TCP/IP server, listening on a specific port for incoming HL7 messages encoded using the HL7 standard LLP protocol. |
| From Database: | The source end of the channel will be a database. Once certain tables within the database are populated (by some external application or database trigger), the From Database source component for the channel will retrieve the new set of data and use it to generate an HL7 message. iNTERFACEWARE's Chameleon messaging engine is used to generate the HL7 message and a Chameleon mapping file (VMD file) is used to determine what data is needed from the database and what message format to generate. The generated message is then passed on to the channel's destination component. |
| From Plugin (called Client Executable in versions of Iguana prior to 4.0): | This component allows users to write an application, in a selected language, that connects to Iguana to generate messages. Iguana can be configured to start the external application and take control of it, or Iguana can start and wait for the external application and wait for its connection. |
| From File: | The source end of the channel will be a file or files that contain HL7 messages on the local machine. The files are polled from a local directory, processed and are moved to a processed directory. The messages are then passed to the channel's destination component in the order that they were written to in the directory (i.e. Iguana always processes the oldest messages first). |
| From Message Filter (Iguana 3.3 and earlier only): | The source end of the channel will be a message filter, which can be used to transmit HL7 messages stored by the message filter destination component in another channel. This component can be used in multiple channels to give Iguana routing capabilities. Messages can subsequently be filtered and mapped (graphical transformation or scripted transformation) into other HL7 formats using the Chameleon engine. In Iguana 4.0 or later, you do not need to specify Message Filter as a source component for a channel, as you can apply a filter to any channel. For details, see Configuring the Filter. |
| From XML File: (Iguana 3.3 and earlier only): | The source end of the channel will be the XML file(s) that contain XML messages on the local machine. The files are polled from a local directory, processed and moved to a processed directory. The message is then passed on to the channel's destination component. In Iguana 4.0 or later, you can specify a filter for your channel that transforms incoming messages from XML to the HL7 format. For details, see Configuring the Filter. |
| From Channel (Iguana 4.0 or later only): | The source end of the channel will be one or more previously defined Iguana channels. |
| From HTTPS (Iguana 4.0 or later only): | The source end of the channel will be an HTTPS connection to a channel defined by another instance of Iguana. The destination component of the other channel must be To HTTPS. |