RE: what is meaning of ** in edi data stream

["George Kinney" <GKinney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have the following line in an EDI 945 document:
> W06*N*2469xxxx*20110803*0393838383838**55193838

> What does the ** signify in this message line?  I assume it means the
field is empty. But the specs I have for the 945 W06 line indicate 5
fields:
> N - Pick ticket number - Shipped date - BOL - Customer PO number

I'd guess that the 'EDI standard' says this record has six fields, but
this particular trading partner only uses five of them. So your spec
probably shows what should be in fields 1,2,3,4,6, the fifth field is
omitted, but the separator still needs to be there since a parser for
this record would expect it to be there. The spec you are working from
might (should) refer to them as W0601, W0602, etc.