Using the Translator

Think Google style of auto-completion, but for your code! You can just start typing and the Translator will suggest a list of functions you can use, as well as a short description of what they do. Or, if you’re working with tables or node trees, you can “search” the name or value of a node and the Translator will suggest a few nodes that match your text and auto-complete the code to access that node!

Let’s say I’m mapping an HL7 message and I want to access the field containing the patient’s name. Rather than navigating through all the nodes, I can just start typing the patient’s name or the field name. For example, I know the field is called “Given Name”:

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Hitting the suggestion automatically fills in the rest of the code I need to access the field:

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This makes it much easier (and faster!) than looking up all the indices you’d need to navigate to this field.

The neat thing about the Translator is that you can insert sample messages and watch in real-time in the annotations as the data is transformed line by line in your script. You can also cycle through different sample messages and check how your code works with different types of messages. This makes it incredibly easy and intuitive to build your code, spot problems, and fix them!

Not sure where an error is coming from? Often, debugging code can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. In the Translator, you can easily jump in and out of functions as they’re called in your script, making it incredibly easy to trace an error in your code all the way from the output to the original source of the error. You can also use the search bar to quickly find snippets of code or navigate to specific functions, which is particularly useful if you have a lot of code to scroll through.