Format support

A command that does not support a format refuses it with CLI_FORMAT_UNSUPPORTED and exit 65, naming the formats that it does support. It never returns a partial or substitute result. The same table is exported as OP_SUPPORT.

Operations

Format	parse	inspect	fmt	validate
hl7	yes	yes	yes	yes
fhir	yes	yes	yes	yes
x12	yes	yes	yes	yes
astm	yes	yes	yes	yes
ncpdp	yes	yes	yes	yes
ccda	no	yes	yes	yes
dicom	no	yes	no	yes
mllp	yes	yes	no	no

• ccda has no parse: fmt writes the document back as XML instead.
• dicom has no parse or fmt: its model and its serialized form are binary, and stdout is text.
• ncpdp covers both standards @cosyte/ncpdp reads: SCRIPT, the XML ePrescribing message, and Telecom vD.0, the pharmacy claim. An input whose first character past spaces and line breaks is < is read as SCRIPT, anything else as Telecom, with or without --format ncpdp. Detection recognizes a Telecom request; a Telecom response needs --format ncpdp.
• mllp is a transport, not a document format. parse takes each frame's HL7 v2 message and parses it as hl7, one JSON line per frame; inspect counts the frames.
• For hl7, x12, astm, ccda, dicom, and ncpdp, validate passes a message that parses; what the parser recovered from is reported as a warning and does not fail it. For fhir, @cosyte/fhir also validates the resource, and an error or fatal finding makes it invalid.

Other commands

Command	Formats
convert	hl7 in, FHIR R4 out. Any other detected format is CLI_FORMAT_UNSUPPORTED.
map-codes	A FHIR R4 ConceptMap in JSON; no detection runs.
redact	ccda, fhir, hl7, x12. astm, mllp, and ncpdp are CLI_NOT_IMPLEMENTED (exit 69): @cosyte/deid has no adapter for them as this CLI reads them (this CLI does not hand NCPDP to its Telecom adapter). dicom is CLI_FORMAT_UNSUPPORTED (exit 65): its de-identified form is binary.

The redact coverage is exported as DEID_COVERAGE.

Detection

Detection reads the first 512 bytes of the input and checks every format's signature against them. It parses only when exactly one matches. A signature that says "starts with" skips a byte order mark and leading spaces, tabs, and line breaks first. The formats are listed in the order the CLI_FORMAT_UNDETECTED message names them:

Format	Signature
hl7	Starts with MSH followed by a punctuation character, the field separator.
mllp	The first byte is 0x0B, the MLLP frame start.
fhir	Starts with { and has a "resourceType" member with a string value.
x12	Starts with ISA followed by a punctuation character, the element separator.
astm	Starts with H followed by four punctuation characters, the delimiters.
ccda	Has a <ClinicalDocument element.
ncpdp	SCRIPT: has a <Message element and the text ncpdp, in any case. Telecom: starts with six digits and D0 (a vD.0 request header), and a field, group, or segment separator (0x1C, 0x1D, 0x1E) follows the 56-byte header. Nothing is skipped before a Telecom header.
dicom	Has DICM at byte 128.

No match is CLI_FORMAT_UNDETECTED; more than one is CLI_FORMAT_AMBIGUOUS. Either way, exit 65, and --format decides. The file name and its extension are never read. With --format, no detection runs, and map-codes never runs it.

Libraries

Format	Parsed with	Dependency
hl7	@cosyte/hl7	required
fhir	@cosyte/fhir	optional
x12	@cosyte/x12	optional
astm	@cosyte/astm	optional
ncpdp	@cosyte/ncpdp	optional
ccda	@cosyte/ccda	optional
dicom	@cosyte/dicom	optional
mllp	@cosyte/mllp, then @cosyte/hl7	optional

A default install has every optional dependency. Without one, a command that needs it prints CLI_PARSER_UNAVAILABLE and exits 69. convert also needs @cosyte/transform and @cosyte/fhir, and redact needs @cosyte/deid.

What inspect prints

inspect prints counts and type codes, never a field value. With --json, the same summary is a JSON object with a format property.

Format	Summary
hl7	message type, version, segment count, count of each segment, warnings
fhir	resource type; for a Bundle, its type, entry count, and count of each entry's resource type; issues
x12	functional groups, transactions, count of each transaction set, segments, warnings
astm	message kind, records, count of each record type, warnings
ccda	document type, sections, section codes, warnings
dicom	SOP class UID, transfer syntax UID, elements, warnings
ncpdp	SCRIPT: standard, message type, version, warnings. Telecom: standard, request or response, transaction code, version, transactions, segments, count of each segment ID, warnings
mllp	frames, warnings