Framework EDI Reference. SEFManager Utility
.VALLISTS Section

The .VALLISTS section lists names that contain a list of values.  Some of these names are references by value references that are listed in the .VALREFS section.  A value in the VALLISTS section is basically of free form text, and has the following purpose:

1. An allowed value.
2. A regular expression of a value.

Allowed values

An item in the VALLIST section can specify a list of allowed values.  When a data element references a value list, only the values listed are allowed for the data element.  The following is an example of a value list, having a name "STATESAUSTRALIA" and description "States of Australia".  The list of values always begins on the next line, each value starts with a quote to indicate a literal value.

CONTINENTS="States ofAustralia"
'New South Wales
'Victoria
'Queensland
'South Australia
'Western Australia
'Tasmania

When a data element references the value list "STATESAUSTRALIA", the data element can only have either the value New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia or Tasmania.  While values in this section is basically free-form text, they should still follow the data type that is set for the data element and should be constrained to the minimum and maximum length requirement of the data element.  Note that the beginning quote is not part of the value and is used only to indicate that it is a literal value instead of a regular expression.

Regular Expression

A value in the VALLISTS section can also be a definition of a regular expression.  These type of values are always preceded with an ampersand (&) to indicate it is a regular expression, followed by the syntax of the regular expression.  As of this writing, the Standard Exchange Format version 1.6 did not describe in detail the syntax of the regular expression, but based on the examples and brief descriptions, the following artifacts have been determined:

• ^ (circumflex) - If present, always precedes the regular expression and indicates that no characters must precede the regular expression.
• $ (dollar) - If present, always ends the regular expression and indicates that no characters can follow the regular expression.
• [0-9] - Indicates that the character in the corresponding position is numeric.
• [A-Z] - Indicates that the character in the corresponding position only takes alphabetic characters.

The following artifacts are also accepted by FREDI.

• [0-Z] - Indicates that the character occurring in the corresponding position only takes alphanumeric characters.
• [12AB] - Indicates that the character in the corresponding position accepts only the characters "1", "2", "A" or "B".
• [12C-F] - Indicates that the character in the corresponding position accepts only the characters "1", "2" and "C", "D", "E", "F".

An example of a regular expression is as follows:

REGEXP=
&^ITEM[0-9][0-9][A-Z]

The name of the regular expression is REGEXP and objects in SEF using this regular expression reference this name.  Values following this regular expression must begin with ITEM (the circumflex disallows preceding characters) followed by two digits and an alphabetic character.  For example, ITEM11A, ITEM23C, ITEM00A, etc.

It is also possible to have a list containing both a list of literal values and regular expressions.  Example,

.VALLISTS
INVENTORY="Inventory Items"
'ITEMABC
'SETOFH1234
&^ITEM[0-9][0-9][A-Z]

 The quote at the start of the values indicates that ITEMABC and SETOFH1234 are literal values, and the ampersand in front of ^ITEM[0-9][0-9][A-Z] indicates that it is a regular expression.