Segment combining and splitting

The A segment is an addendum segment for the preceding segment. The maximum length of a segment, including the segment separator, is 220 characters. For any segment beyond this size, one or more A segments must be used. There are two situations where this restriction is relevant:

  • During parsing, before translation, of an HPRIM message, each A segment is combined with its preceding segment.
  • During encoding, after translation, of an HPRIM message, any segment exceeding the maximum length limit is split into as many A segments as necessary.

The C segment is a comment segment for the preceding segment, which can display at any level of the hierarchy. This segment is removed from message before translation. This is implemented in the preProcessHMD TCL procedure.

Note:  Creating a C segment is not supported. To keep the comment, you must create a variant to work around.