FHIR Chat · Topic for this week · fmg

Stream: fmg

Topic: Topic for this week

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Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 18:09):

Do we have official style guidance for profiling FHIR Parameters (e.g., naming conventions) for use with Operations?

Lloyd McKenzie (Oct 20 2021 at 18:12):

Naming conventions for the profiles? Naming conventions for the parameters? To my knowledge, both are a free-for-all

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:11):

I meant for things like Parameter.name. We recently had an issue in FHIR-I where @Gino Canessa updated parameter names in our FHIR Subscription-related operations to better align with FHIR conventions -- which I think was good for overall clarity, but I don't think FHIR's editorial guidelines ever actually spell out or suggest that HL7-authored (even FHIR Core!) operations should follow any particular conventions.

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:15):

This leads to fun like ...

• http://build.fhir.org/resource-operation-convert.html defines a single output called output, even though our ergonomic support for returning nicely formatted resources requires that the output be called return

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:15):

• http://build.fhir.org/resource-operation-graphql.html defines a single output called result even though... ditto

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:16):

• http://build.fhir.org/resource-operation-graph.html ... ditto

• http://build.fhir.org/documentreference-operation-generate.html ... called docRef... ditto

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:17):

• http://build.fhir.org/activitydefinition-operation-apply.html defines params with camel cased names like userTaskContext
• http://build.fhir.org/codesystem-operation-lookup.html uses some camel cased names and some dotted names like designation.language (edit: I guess the dotted names are just a formatting convention for nesting, but names could include dots, so this is confusing.)

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:23):

• http://build.fhir.org/group-operation-everything.html includes _since with an underscore but start with no prefix

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:23):

• generally some operations prefix input params with _ and some don't, while some use a mix

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:24):

• http://build.fhir.org/list-operation-find.html documents no output at all, though the example includes one

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:26):

• http://build.fhir.org/messageheader-operation-process-message.html includes a kebab cased input (response-url)

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:27):

• http://build.fhir.org/observation-operation-stats.html includes an input called statistic and an output called statistics, both 1..*

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:28):

• http://build.fhir.org/observation-operation-lastn.html documents most of its parameters implicitly ("the lastn query uses the normal search parameters defined for the Observation resource. However, rather than their normal use, they are interpreted as inputs")

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:30):

• http://build.fhir.org/valueset-operation-expand.html uses a mix with ten camel-cased inputs (e.g., excludePostCoordinated) and four kebab-cased (e.g., exclude-system)

Josh Mandel (Oct 20 2021 at 19:30):

(Phew, OK I've now tabbed through each briefly.)

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Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC