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Right now new versions of HL7 Comm, HCM, Light HL7 Library and Integrate Client Library are available. Find them using their respective links to the side, and as always report issues using the support forum, or by emailing me (contact information under the About or Resume links to the right).

There’s also a new document under the HL7 Comm section describing how to use custom jars for clients in either HL7 Comm or HCM. Enjoy.

A user from the support forum indicated that they were using custom clients, logic and even HL7 ack logic and wanted to include custom jars with their HCM instance. This didn’t really work like they wanted because of the way that the classloader works with Tomcat (and other app servers). I added a custom classloader for all Integrate Client Library (ICL) applications, and have HCM using it which allows you to specify a jarUrls property in the client config to add your jars to the classpath. See here (towards the bottom) for information on how to do that. This version, 0.3, also will display the external connection status where applicable (i.e. TCP/IP clients).

Here’s a quick shot of the almost completed version:

Once I make sure this code works OK with HL7 Comm, I’ll be releasing both versions (including a GUI for adding additional jars to your config with HL7 Comm), as well as all the updated library jars and the like. The documentation is going to need a few updates as well.

ICL has been updated to SVN 71 and HL7 Comm is now at SVN 61. No new binary builds yet, but soon. Basically, ICL needed one more update to correctly report external connection status for the MLLP server (basically returns true if any of its connection threads report connected), and the client now reports disconnected correctly when it’s shut down.

HL7 Comm displays the status of the external connection. So right now it shows “Not applicable” for the file clients and “True” or “False” for the MLLP and HL7 clients. HCM is next. Binary builds, hopefully by this weekend.

Due to a request from a user, Integrate Client Library (used by HL7 Comm, HCM, etc.) has been updated to include external connection status in the API. An abstract isConnected method that returns Boolean has been added to the abstract class all the clients implement. If you’re implementing your own connection class and update to this version you’ll have to implement the method, but it’s really easy to do (just return null if it’s not applicable, or the status of the connection). The getStatus method also now returns a “connected” property for the HL7 and MLLP clients. I intend to update HL7 Comm and HCM soon to display the external connection status using this logic.

For right now if you’re interested you’ll have to check out the source and rebuild to get the new version, or contact me for a jar (I don’t think a ton of you guys use the libraries outside of what’s provided with the utilities). I’ll have it up loaded pretty soon, when I get to rebuild HL7 Comm and HCM with them.