HL7 Delimiter Characters

As you have seen in the previous sections, certain special characters separate one composite in a segment from another, or separate one sub-composite from another. These special characters are known as delimiter characters.

This section describes delimiter characters in more detail, how to use escape characters to include a delimiter character as part of a composite, and how to define new HL7 delimiter characters.

HL7 Delimiter Characters

The following table lists the default delimiter characters used in HL7:

Character	Purpose
0x0D	Marks the end of each segment.
|	Composite delimiter.
^	Sub-composite delimiter.
&	Sub-sub-composite delimiter.
~	Separates repeating fields.
\	Escape character.

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