EDIFACT in Python

Parse, build, and route EDIFACT messages with typed Python classes. Interchanges, dialects, and profiles - with byte-faithful round trips.

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UNA-UNZ

Full envelope support

Typed

Segments and messages

Any

Dialect or profile

100%

Round-trip fidelity

Code examples

Pythonic by design

Parse incoming interchanges or build new messages from scratch, all with typed Python classes.

Features

Everything for EDIFACT

Parse, navigate, build, and exchange EDIFACT messages, all in Python.

Semantic field access

Use msg.pid.patient_name instead of counting elements and components. Repeating segments and groups are plain Python lists.

Dialects and profiles

Define any dialect as typed Python classes. Dutch healthcare profiles ship as a complete, ready-to-use example.

Round-trip fidelity

Serialization reproduces the wire text - what you parse is what you can send back out, byte for byte.

Interchange envelopes

UNA service string advice, UNB-UNZ envelopes, multi-message interchanges, and bare envelope-less messages - all parsed with one call.

EDIFACT is text - send it over REST, SOAP, file drops, SFTP, email or message queues with the connections Zato already has.

JSON serialization

Convert interchanges, messages, and segments to dicts and JSON with to_dict and to_json.

Tutorials

Learn by building

Step-by-step guides for EDIFACT integration patterns.

Parse, build, and route EDIFACT messages

Receive an interchange, navigate it with typed Python classes, and build a reply.

Start tutorial HL7

Receive and parse HL7 v2 messages

The companion standard - set up an MLLP channel, parse incoming messages, and respond with acknowledgments.

Documentation

EDIFACT developer guides

In-depth documentation for working with EDIFACT messages in Python.

EDIFACT integration

What the engine covers and how the pieces fit together

EDIFACT message parsing

Interchanges, envelopes, separators, and round trips

EDIFACT field access

Typed segments, composites, repeating groups, and lists

EDIFACT dialects and profiles

Define your own message types and register them

EDIFACT transport patterns

Mailboxes, file drops, REST and SOAP carriers

EDIFACT messaging in healthcare

Where EDIFACT still runs healthcare and how to integrate with it

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

No. EDIFACT is text with its own internal envelope, it has no transport of its own. Whatever channel delivers the text - REST, SOAP, file transfer, SFTP, email or a message queue - your service calls parse_edifact on the payload and works with typed messages from there.

The generic engine parses any syntactically valid EDIFACT, and typed message definitions ship for the Dutch healthcare profiles (MEDLAB, MEDVRI, MEDRAD, MEDSPE) as a complete worked example of a dialect. Your own dialects are plain Python classes that follow the same pattern.

They parse into generic messages that keep every segment, element, and component navigable by position, and they serialize back byte-for-byte. Typed access is an addition, never a requirement.

Yes - parse and serialize gives you back the wire text, including separators, escapes, and elements that were empty on the wire. Fields you modify are re-serialized in place, everything else stays untouched.

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Open source In Python