Segment Qualifier & Element Qualifier

Question

Hi,
    what is Segment Qualifier & Element Qualifier in EDI?
what is the difference between these two.
Thanks,
Rajeswari

Answer 1

Hi rajeshwari,
here are the simple definition of segment and element qualifier
Segment:-
EDI documents are comprised of a series of records called segments. Every segment begins with a segment identifier, also called a segment code. The segments are delimited. A special character or characters designate where one segment ends and another begins. Usually segment delimiters include a line return, so we usually think of a segment as a line of an EDI document.
Element:-
A segment is comprised of a series of elements. These elements are delimited by a special character called a element seperator.
Difference
The segment code specifies what the elements in the segment represent. For instance, the first element of an DTM segment is date/time qualifier and the second element is the date. The first element of a REF segment is the reference identification qualifier and the second element is the reference identifier. We refer to elements by their sequence within the segment. For example, we refer to the first element within a REF segment as element REF01, the second as REF02, and so forth.
Example
The following X12 EDI document fragment contains eight (8) segments.
     ST850397822~
     BEG00RE1234*980208~
     REFAHM109~
     REFDP641~
     REFIA000100685~
     DTM010970918~
     N1BY92*1287~
     N1ST92*87447~
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hope this may help you
Thanks
sandeep
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