In 1978, The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) chartered a Accredited Standard Committee (ASC) X12. This committee's objective was "...to develop uniform standards for inter-industry electronic interchange of business transactions". The result was an example of the "design by committee" - a set of EDI (electronic data interchange) standards now known as X12 - more than 300 specifications published so far. The next most exciting bureaucratic organization in the world, naturally, could not stay away for long and in 1986, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) adopted UN/EDIFACT (United Nations Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport), which is roughly the same thing as ANSI's X12.
Both standards should be long dead by now, but X12 has made its way into government regulations and, therefore, is mandated for use in government-regulated industries. The United State's health care is one of these. The http://www.x12.org contains a broader and prouder overview of the whole thing.
The raw X12 message looks like this:
ISA*03*ABRA *01*PASSWORD *ZZ*ABRACADABRA *ZZ*SECRET *040115 *1144*U*00401*000003421*0*T*:~GS*HB*RGP4530*FJRIDNKLEKSJDFL*20040115*114427* 473829384*004010X059~ST*278*1000~BHT*0083*49*WYCKJHSLXBWF*20030529*1653*18~H L*1**20*1~NM1*X3*2*TEST*****PI*PYRCD**~HL*2*1*21*1~NM1*1P*1*Provider*Request ing*B***46*taxID2**~REF*ZH*P2**~PRV*PC*ZZ*SPECIALITY1**SC1*~HL*3*2*22*1~HI*B F:9993*BF:9998*BF:0132*********~NM1*IL*1*LastName*FirstName*M*Mr.*II*MI*MEM ID-01**~REF*EJ*PAT ACCT NUM~DMG*D8*19650113*M******~HL*4*3*PA*1~NM1*DN*1*Pro vider*Referring*T*Dr.**46*REF TAX ID**~REF*ZH*163459281**~N3*Referring Provi der Address*Suite 100~N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~PRV*AT*ZZ*REFERRING SPECIALTY** SC2*~HL*5*4*19*1~NM1*SJ*1*Provider*Service*T*Dr.**46*SERV TAX ID*~REF*ZH*163 459281**~N3*Service Provider Address*Suite 200~N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~PRV*PE *ZZ*SERVICE SPECIALTY**SC3*~HL*6*5*SS*0~TRN*2*TRACE NUM*ORIG CMPNY*~UM*SC*I* 1*11:B*****r*~HCR*A1*REFERRAL NUMBER**~REF*BB*PREV CERT NUM**~DTP*472*RD8*20 030101-20030630~DTP*102*D8*20030101~DTP*036*D8*20030630~DTP*007*D8*20030101~ DTP*881*D8*20030202~HSD*VS*3******~SE*37*1000~GE*1*001127092~IEA*1*001123616 ~
In case you are wondering - it is a Health Care Services Review Response, ASC X12N 278 (004010X059). Theoretically, human beings are not supposed to see any of this, but practically most of the people working in EDI in general and health care IT specifically have to make sense of and/or edit this gooblegook directly.
Nice folks at APP Design, Inc. suffered lond enough to think of a solution. Feeling sympathetic to our brethren in EDI industy we also decided to provide our solution - the X12 editing mode - free of charge as a service to the suffering EDI comunity - to ease the pain somewhat. The mode requires the use of a GNU Emacs editor, which is distributed by the Free Software Foundation, again - free of charge. The mode is provided under the terms of GNU General Public License (also known as GPL) and WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Under this editing mode, the above example looks either like this (in its original, but colorized mode):
ISA*03*ABRA *01*PASSWORD *ZZ*ABRACADABRA *ZZ*SECRET *040115 *1144*U*00401*000003421*0*T*:~GS*HB*RGP4530*FJRIDNKLEKSJDFL*20040115*114427* 473829384*004010X059~ST*278*1000~BHT*0083*49*WYCKJHSLXBWF*20030529*1653*18~H L*1**20*1~NM1*X3*2*TEST*****PI*PYRCD**~HL*2*1*21*1~NM1*1P*1*Provider*Request ing*B***46*taxID2**~REF*ZH*P2**~PRV*PC*ZZ*SPECIALITY1**SC1*~HL*3*2*22*1~HI*B F:9993*BF:9998*BF:0132*********~NM1*IL*1*LastName*FirstName*M*Mr.*II*MI*MEM ID-01**~REF*EJ*PAT ACCT NUM~DMG*D8*19650113*M******~HL*4*3*PA*1~NM1*DN*1*Pro vider*Referring*T*Dr.**46*REF TAX ID**~REF*ZH*163459281**~N3*Referring Provi der Address*Suite 100~N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~PRV*AT*ZZ*REFERRING SPECIALTY** SC2*~HL*5*4*19*1~NM1*SJ*1*Provider*Service*T*Dr.**46*SERV TAX ID*~REF*ZH*163 459281**~N3*Service Provider Address*Suite 200~N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~PRV*PE *ZZ*SERVICE SPECIALTY**SC3*~HL*6*5*SS*0~TRN*2*TRACE NUM*ORIG CMPNY*~UM*SC*I* 1*11:B*****r*~HCR*A1*REFERRAL NUMBER**~REF*BB*PREV CERT NUM**~DTP*472*RD8*20 030101-20030630~DTP*102*D8*20030101~DTP*036*D8*20030630~DTP*007*D8*20030101~ DTP*881*D8*20030202~HSD*VS*3******~SE*37*1000~GE*1*001127092~IEA*1*001123616 ~
or this (split by segments):
ISA*03*ABRA *01*PASSWORD *ZZ*ABRACADABRA *ZZ*SECRET *040115 *1144*U*00401*000003421*0*T*:~ GS*HB*RGP4530*FJRIDNKLEKSJDFL*20040115*114427*473829384*004010X059~ ST*278*1000~ BHT*0083*49*WYCKJHSLXBWF*20030529*1653*18~ HL*1**20*1~ NM1*X3*2*TEST*****PI*PYRCD**~ HL*2*1*21*1~ NM1*1P*1*Provider*Requesting*B***46*taxID2**~ REF*ZH*P2**~ PRV*PC*ZZ*SPECIALITY1**SC1*~ HL*3*2*22*1~ HI*BF:9993*BF:9998*BF:0132*********~ NM1*IL*1*LastName*FirstName*M*Mr.*II*MI*MEM ID-01**~ REF*EJ*PAT ACCT NUM~ DMG*D8*19650113*M******~ HL*4*3*PA*1~ NM1*DN*1*Provider*Referring*T*Dr.**46*REF TAX ID**~ REF*ZH*163459281**~ N3*Referring Provider Address*Suite 100~ N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~ PRV*AT*ZZ*REFERRING SPECIALTY**SC2*~ HL*5*4*19*1~ NM1*SJ*1*Provider*Service*T*Dr.**46*SERV TAX ID*~ REF*ZH*163459281**~ N3*Service Provider Address*Suite 200~ N4*Chicago*IL*60606***~ PRV*PE*ZZ*SERVICE SPECIALTY**SC3*~ HL*6*5*SS*0~ TRN*2*TRACE NUM*ORIG CMPNY*~ UM*SC*I*1*11:B*****r*~ HCR*A1*REFERRAL NUMBER**~ REF*BB*PREV CERT NUM**~ DTP*472*RD8*20030101-20030630~ DTP*102*D8*20030101~ DTP*036*D8*20030630~ DTP*007*D8*20030101~ DTP*881*D8*20030202~ HSD*VS*3******~ SE*37*1000~ GE*1*001127092~ IEA*1*001123616~
Either view is easier to navigate - visually, emotionally,or by keystrokes. To summarize, the mode will provide the following functionality for you:
The following operations are defined in the x12-mode:
| Operation | Mapping | Usually bound to | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| x12-field-forward | forward-sexp | ESC C-f | Other commands on 'sexp' will work too: 'kill-sexp', 'mark-sexp', 'backward-kill-sexp', etc. |
| x12-field-backward | backward-sexp | ESC C-b | |
| forward-segment | forward-sentence | ESC e | Other sentence-oriented commands will also work. |
| backward-segment | backward-sentence | ESC a | |
| x12-glue |
No native Emacs equivalent | Custom bound to ESC C-x g | |
| x12-break | Custom bound to ESC C-x b | ||
Delimiters for the X12 message can be customized in the mode's own customization group Emacs/Data/x12.
Installation is easy: you need to download and install the file x12-mode.el (or its compiled version x12-mode.elc) anywhere on the load-path. To find out what the path is use the following command:
M-: (print load-path)
Typically, it is something like this in the Windows system:
( "c:/util/emacs-21.2/site-lisp" "C:/util/emacs-21.2/../site-lisp" "C:/util/emacs-21.2/lisp" "c:/util/emacs-21.2/lisp/toolbar" ... "C:/util/emacs-21.2/leim" "~/lisp" )
The last place - your home "lisp" directory will be the most appropriate. The usual code in your .emacs file will make the mode automatic for all *.x12 files:
(require 'x12-mode)
(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.[xX]12\\'" . x12-mode) auto-mode-alist))
The whole project is hosted at the Source Forge, you can download the x12-mode from there. You are also invited to participate in further development, the site contains the most current to-do list.
You can also request volunteers' support, log feature requests, and, if anything else fails, submit a bug report.