X12 File Physical Characteristics

An interchange's physical characteristics are described in the PhysicalCharacteristics Element. This Element is required for only the target conversion utility. The relevant information is extracted directly from the input interchange for the source conversion utility.

Table 9.3 shows the child Elements of the PhysicalCharacteristics Element. All are required unless otherwise noted.

Note that a few things are missing from the child Elements and Attributes defined for the PhysicalCharacteristics Element.

• Interchange control standards identifier: Prior to version 4020 of X12 this was the ID value sent in ISA11. The only value ever approved was a U, so I hard-code it in the utility.

• Interchange and group control numbers: These come from a separate source as will be discussed in a later section.

• Interchange and group date and time stamps: These are generated by the XMLToX12 utility at runtime.

Although the Repetition Separator and repeating data elements were not introduced until version 4020, I include the delimiter here for future compatibility.