PN VR name encoding with ^

[cisco]

Hello,
I would like to get your feedback on this. I am working with a modality that does not encode the (0010,0010) PatientsName with ^. So when I parse the patient's name, I get the "Lastname,Firstname".

My question is, must the software on this modality include the "^" for the name or is it acceptable not to do this?

I can work with the modality the way it is now, but I am wondering if this will cause a problem down the line.

Thanks
-Cisco

[Jörg Riesmeier]

See part 5 of the DICOM standard for a definition of the value representation PN (Person Name). Here's the relevant part of the notes on page 27-29:

5. For reasons of backward compatibility with versions of this standard prior to V3.0, person names might be considered a single family name complex (single component without "^" delimiters).

Btw, this question does not seem to be related to any of the OFFIS DICOM Tools so we would prefer if you post questions like this to the comp.protocols.dicom newsgroup. Thank you for your understanding.