Transport Specification: MLLP, Release 1

Edit or Rene Spronk

Rene.Spronk@Ringholm .nl
HL7 Net her lands; Ringholm Gm bH
HL7® Version 3 St andard, © 2003 Healt h Level Sev en® , I nc. All Right s Reserved.

HL7 and Healt h Level Sev en are regist ered t radem ark s of Healt h Level Seven, I nc. Reg. U.S. Pat & TM Off

Table of Contents
1. Minim al Lower Layer Prot ocol ( MLLP)
1.1 I nt r oduct ion
1.2 Block Form at
1.3 Lim it at ions of MLLP
1.4 Ex am ples
1.5 Refer ences

1. Minimal Lower Layer Protocol (MLLP)

1.1 Introduction
This docum ent specifies t he Minim al Lower Lay er pr ot ocol ( MLLP, a.k.a. MLP) . The MLLP pr ot ocol has a long hist ory of use wit hin t he HL7
com m unit y, alt hough it has never been form ally part of t he HL7 st andar d it self.
The MLLP pr ot ocol is a m inim alist ic OSI - session layer fr am ing prot ocol. I t is assum ed t hat t he MLLP prot ocol will be used only in a net work
envir onm ent . Most of t he det ails of err or det ect ion and cor rect ion are handled by t he lower lev els of any reasonable net work prot ocol ( e.g.
TCP/ I P, SNA) and do not require any supplem ent at ion.
 Figu r e 1 I n t e r a ct ion D ia gr a m
The goal of t his lower lev el pr ot ocol is t o provide an int er face bet ween HL7 and t he net w or k t hat uses m inim al ov er head. This pr ot ocol is
ext ensively used for t he t ranspor t of HL7 v er sion 2 m essages. MLLP has lim it ed suppor t for char act er encodings, see below for det ails. This
Transpor t Specificat ion suppor t s ( am ongst ot her m essage encodings and I TSs) t he vert ical bar and XML HL7 version 2 m essage encodings
and t he ver sion 3 XML I TS. This t r ansport pr ot ocol m ay not be applicable t o som e HL7 v er sion 3 I TSs.

1.2 Block Format

HL7 cont ent is enclosed by special charact er s t o for m a block.
The block form at is as follow s: < SB> dddd< EB> < CR>

Ele m e nt D e scr ipt ion

St ar t Block char act er ( 1 by t e) . ASCI I < VT> , i.e., < 0x0B> . This should not be confused wit h t he ASCI I char act ers
< SB>
SOH or STX.

Dat a ( var iable num ber of byt es) . This is t he HL7 dat a cont ent of t he block . The dat a can cont ain any single- by t e
dddd values great er t han 0x1F ( see next par agr aph for issues r elat ed t o char act er encodings) and t he ASCI I carr iage
ret ur n char act er, < CR> .

End Block char act er ( 1 byt e) . ASCI I < FS> , i.e., < 0x 1C> . This should not be confused wit h t he ASCI I charact er s
< EB>
ETX or EOT.

< CR> Carr iage Ret urn ( 1 byt e) . The ASCI I car riage r et urn charact er , i.e., < 0x 0D> .

1.3 Limitations of MLLP

The MLLP block is fr am ed by single- by t e values. The charact er s t r ansm it t ed wit hin t he MLLP block have t o be encoded accor ding t o a
charact er encoding t hat does not conflict wit h t he by t e v alues used for fram ing. Som e m ult i- by t e charact er encodings ( e.g. UTF- 16, UTF- 32)
 m ay r esult in byt e values equal t o t he MLLP fram ing charact er s or byt e values lower t han 0x1F, r esult ing in err or s. These char act er
encodings ar e t herefor e not support ed by MLLP.
MLLP support s all single- by t e charact er encodings ( e.g. iso- 8859- x, cp1252) as well as UTF- 8 and Shift _JI S.
The sending and r eceiv ing syst em s will have t o m ut ually agree upon t he encoding used for a given connect ion. Most applicat ions wit hin a
cert ain geogr aphic/ language area share t he sam e charact er encoding. U.S./ Canadian im plem ent at ions of MLLP t ypically use t he UTF- 8
encoding; West ern European ( Germ anic and Lat in language ar eas) im plem ent at ions t ypically use t he I SO 8859- 1 encoding.

1.4 Examples
This sect ion cont ains a num ber of ex am ples of MLLP- fram ed HL7 payloads, wher e < SB> < EB> and < CR> ar e used t o denot e t he non-
pr int able MLLP- fram ing single- by t e values 0x0B, 0x1C and 0x0D. They ar e not t o be int er pret ed as XML- t ags.
1: HL7 version 2 Example
<SB>
MSH|^~\&|ZIS|1^AHospital|||199605141144||ADT^A01|20031104082400|P|2.3|||
AL|NE|||8859/15|<CR>EVN|A01|20031104082400.0000+0100|20031104082400
PID||""|10||Vries^Danny^D.^^de||19951202|M|||Rembrandlaan^7^Leiden^^7301TH^""
^^P||""|""||""|||||||""|""<CR>PV1||I|3w^301^""^01|S|||100^van den Berg^^A.S.
^^""^dr|""||9||||H||||20031104082400.0000+0100<CR>
<EB><CR>
2: HL7 version 3 Example
<SB>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-15"?>
<Message xmlns="urn:hl7-org:v3" xmlns:voc="urn:hl7-org:v3/voc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<id extension="10213" root="2.16.840.1.113883.2.4.99.1.700222.1"/>
<creationTime value="20030216140000"/>
<versionId>V3PR1_ballot5</versionId>
<interactionId extension="MFMT_IN100010NL" root="2.16.840.1.113883"/>
<processingCode code="P"/>
. . .
. . .
</Message>
<EB><CR>
3: CDA Release 2 Example

<SB>
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ClinicalDocument xmlns="urn:hl7-org:v3" xmlns:voc="urn:hl7-org:v3/voc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="urn:hl7-org:v3 CDA.ReleaseTwo.CommitteeBallot01.July.2003.xsd">

<id extension="c266" root="2.16.840.1.113883.3.933"/>

<code code="11488-4" codeSystem="2.16.840.1.113883.6.1"
 displayName="Consultation note"/>
<title>Good Health Clinic Consultation Note</title>
<effectiveTime value="20000407"/>
<setId extension="BB35" root="2.16.840.1.113883.3.933"/>
<versionNumber value="2"/>
. . .
. . .
</ClinicalDocument>
<EB><CR>

1.5 References
This specificat ion is based on t he HL7 I m plem ent at ion Guide for HL7 v er sion 2.3.1, appendix C " Lower Layer Pr ot ocols" , sect ion C.4.3.