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NAACCR XML

While the NAACCR flat-file format has successfully served the NAACCR community for more than 15 years, some of its limitations became apparent in the recent years:

• Repeated demographic data for each tumor.
• Not enough space for large text fields.
• Difficulty to support state or registry-specific variables.

The NAACCR XML Task Force attempted to resolve those limitations by using XML.

Using an XML-based format comes with some benefits:

• The data is better structured (it is clear when an item falls under the Patient category vs the Tumor one).
• The same items never need to be repeated.
• Items that are blank do not need to be provided in the data file.
• Some group of items (like addresses) can be repeated.
• Larger text fields can be handled without being cut-off.
• State or registry-specific items can easily be defined and added to the format.
• An XML-based format can be extended to support other structured data embedded within the standard data.

Task Force website

All the documents created by the Task Force are available on its website:

http://naaccrxml.org/.

The NAACCR XML Utility Tool

To allow the new XML format to be evaluated, the Task Force designed a tool to convert flat files into XML and vice-versa.

Download latest version)

The tool requires a Java framework. Once you downloaded the file, double-clicking it to start the tool.

If you need more help about the interface, consult the help page under the Help menu.