NAME

Net::HL7::Connection - A HL7 connection

SYNOPSIS

use Net::HL7::Connection; use Net::HL7::Request;

my $conn = new Net::HL7::Connection('localhost', 8089);

my $req = new Net::HL7::Request();

... set some request attributes

my $res = $conn->send($req);

$conn->close();

DESCRIPTION

The Net::HL7::Connection object represents the tcp connection to the HL7 message broker. The Connection has only two useful methods (apart from the constructor), send and close. The 'send' method takes a Net::HL7::Request as argument, and returns a Net::HL7::Response. The send method can be used more than once, before the connection is closed.

FIELDS

The Connection object holds the following fields:

MESSAGE_PREFIX: The prefix to be sent to the HL7 server to initiate the message. Defaults to \013.
MESSAGE_SUFFIX: End of message signal for HL7 server. Defaults to \034\015.

METHODS

The following methods are available:

$c = new Net::HL7::Connection( $host, $port[, Timeout = timeout] )> Creates a connection to a HL7 server, or returns undef when a connection could not be established. timeout is optional, and will default to 10 seconds.
send($request): Sends a Net::HL7::Request object over this connection.
close(): Close the connection.

AUTHOR