About Message Data

In Mirth® Connect, a message refers to a single overall dispatch of data through the source connector and destination connectors within a channel. Messages are further separated into connector messages which are part of the message that flow through a single connector. For example if your channel has two destinations, then a single message will have three connector messages associated with it as it is processed through the channel: One source connector, and two destination connectors. These connector messages correspond to the rows of data you see in the Metadata Table within the Message Browser.

Note that messages do not always correspond 1-to-1 with a file that you read in, or a particular stream of data. As explained in the About Channels and Connectors section, the source connector may contain a batch processor which takes a raw inbound stream of data and splits it into multiple messages. So if you have a single file containing 100 HL7 v2.x messages, your channel could read that in and process 1 message or 100 messages, depending on how the source connector is configured.