Mirth Connect - Splitting a combined XML file into individual XML messages

Here is a solution to a problem to a Mirth Connect problem I had, which took me several hours to work out.

The problem I had was that I was using a File Reader import a large XML file with  hundreds of records in the following format:

 <employees>
    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>12345</employeeNumber>
      <surname>One</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>
    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>54321</employeeNumber>
      <surname>Two</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>

    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>99999</employeeNumber>
      <surname>Three</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>
  </employees>

I needed to break these up into individual messages to post on to a web service:

Message 1:

    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>12345</employeeNumber>
      <surname>One</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>

Message 2:

    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>54321</employeeNumber>
      <surname>Two</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>

Message 3:

    <employee>
      <employeeNumber>99999</employeeNumber>
      <surname>Three</surname>
      <firstname>Number</firstname>
      <gender>F</gender>
    </employee>

Initially, I though this would be a straightforward task, enabling the batch process option. However this is not supported with XML. I then moved on to using a 'for each in' loop, which seemed to be the preferred approach in Mirth forum, but I couldn't get the code to iterate properly.

Eventually, I configured a two channel approach. The first channel imports and splits the XML, the second receives the split messages, and performs the transformations and onward delivery.

A simple prototype can be configured as follows:

Step 1 create 2 channels as follows:.

1 - Channel name: XMLreceiver (or whatever you like)

Source: File Reader
Source Transformer: Create a new JavaScript step as follows:

Code:

empLength = (msg.employees.employee.length());  // This returns the number of <employee> elements

for (var i = 0; i < empLength; i++) {
// loop through the <employee> elements. Send the contents to the channel XMLsender
router.routeMessage('XMLsender',msg.employees.employee[i].toString());

}

Destination: Leave it as it is. The Source will route the message onto the second channel. 

2 - Channel name: XMLsender (or whatever you like, but it has to match the value in the routeMessage in the Source Transformer)

Source: Leave as it is. Messages will be routed in from your XMLsender channel.

Transformations and Destinations. Configure as for your receiving system, such as conversion to HL7.

Welcome!

This is my first ever post,on my first ever blog, which after many years of procrastination I have finally got round to starting. My motivation, more that anything, is to put something back, to contribute.
Over the years, on countless occasions, I have found something useful on blogs, whether a piece of code to solve a problem at work, advice on solving a problem at home, or snippets of trivia to settle an argument.
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