[HAPI-devel] Lead spacing trimming

[David B. <Dav...@he...>]

Hi,

I'm experiencing a situation where an NTE-3 field handled by HAPI is trimming leading spaces, eg '  an FT string' -> 'an FT string'. My investigation lead me to the HAPI FAQ link http://hl7api.sourceforge.net/hapi-faq.html#leading_space which describes this behaviour for FT, ST and TX fields.

My questions are:

*         why does HAPI trim leading spaces given that the HL7 v2.4 spec 'Chapter 2.9.48 TX - text data' says 'Leading spaces should be included'?

*         I can't find any reference in the rest of the HL7 v2.4 spec which mentions the trimming of leading spaces. Have I missed this, or why has HAPI chosen to trim?

Regards,
David Bunzli

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