Re: Socket Programming - HL7 Data to Win2k server - An UPDATE

To Scott Klement, Vern Hamburg, & Jeff Silverberg, and a few others.

Just wanted to give you an update:

As you may recall, I had some problems a few weeks ago with a MS Message 
Queue & Biztalk vender who couldn't really define what they wanted in 
terms of start block and end block characters and the problems it was 
causing in regards to my ILE RPG socket programs. (That issue has been 
settled.)

Long story short - it's not me - it's them. The RPG sockets programs are 
sending the data. The vendor says they can see the connection but no data 
is getting through. An iSeries comm trace showed the data, and the IP 
addresses of the source & target systems and the data as well.

I also managed to find a neat tool called 7Scan that is a pc based HL7 
parser that sends and receives HL7 data using sockets. I created a program 
to use my iSeries data with this product. We then used a network sniffer 
and they still had the same problems - they could see the connection but 
claimed the data wasn't getting through - zero packets. We showed them 
those logs too showing the source/target IP addresses and the data. The 
really funny thing was that their servers were sending acknowledgements 
for each message sent over the sockets.They could no longer blame the 
iSeries since the canned PC app worked the same way. They are stumped. 
They still cannot get past it.

I'm not asking for any input or help here as the ball is purely in their 
court now. I just wanted to share.

Scott - your tutorial was of great value - thanks so much. Also thanks to 
all who provided their input too.

Have a wonderful holiday !

Regards,

Gerald Kern
IBM Certified AS/400 RPG IV Developer & RPG IV Programmer
MIS Project Leader, Lotus Notes/Domino Administrator
The Toledo Clinic, Inc.
4235 Secor Road
Toledo, OH 43623-4299
Phone 419-479-5535
gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx