Python DIC Helper Toolkit

This Toolkit contains helper libraries for the daily tasks of Data Integration Centers (DICs) — the data integration and interoperability platforms operated by German university hospitals, as defined by the German Medical Informatics Initiative (Medizininformatik-Initiative, MII) and used across projects of the Network of University Medicine (Netzwerk Universitätsmedizin, NUM). DICs provide standardized, FHIR-based access to clinical and research data for secondary use.

Installation

Requires Python 3.13 or newer: the HTTP client's strict RFC 5280 certificate checks (rfc5280=True, the default) are Python's default from 3.13 on.

pip install dic-helper-toolkit

The package is published on PyPI. To use the FHIR XML reader, install the xml extra: pip install dic-helper-toolkit[xml].

Contents

HTTP client

A wrapper around the requests library which allows to create an object for an endpoint holding all needed configuration including authentication and certificate verification. It supports Basic Auth and OAuth 2.0.

Usage:

from dic_helpers.http_client import HTTPClient

## No authentication or CA certificate at all
client = HTTPClient(base_url="https://example.com")

## Basic Auth with CA certificate
#client = HTTPClient(base_url="https://example.com", username="user", password="P4SSW0RD", ca_file="MyCA.crt")

## OAuth 2.0 with username and password
#client = HTTPClient(base_url="https://example.com", username="user", password="P4SSW0RD",
#                    auth_url="https://keycloak.example.com", realm="MyRealm", client_id="MyClient",
#                    client_secret="00000000-00000000-00000000-00000000", ca_file="MyCA.crt")

with client.get("index.html") as result:
    print(result)

FHIR client

A simple FHIR client library which uses the HTTP client from above and handles resources directly as fhir.resources (https://github.com/nazrulworld/fhir.resources) object.

Usage:

from dic_helpers.fhir_client import FHIRClient

client = FHIRClient(base_url="https://example.com", username="user", password="P4SSW0RD",
                    auth_url="https://keycloak.example.com", realm="MyRealm", client_id="MyClient",
                    client_secret="00000000-00000000-00000000-00000000", ca_file="MyCA.crt")

# Fetch a patient 
patients = client.search("Patient", "identifier=0123456789&_lastUpdated=ge2025-01-01"):
for patient in patients:
    print(patient)

Keep in mind, that this returns an object.

Directory reader

Lists the files of a directory, optionally including all subdirectories, whose names match shell-style patterns.

Usage:

from dic_helpers.directory_reader import DirectoryReader

reader = DirectoryReader("/data/export", patterns=["*.json", "*.ndjson"], recursive=True)
for path in reader.list_files():
    print(path)

• Only regular files are listed, sorted by path, as pathlib.Path objects that start with the directory as given.
• patterns (default "*") are matched case-sensitively against the file names (*, ?, [seq]). A single pattern can be a string; a file is listed if it matches any pattern. Special characters in the directory's own name don't matter.
• recursive (default False) also lists the files of all subdirectories.
• include_hidden (default False): hidden files (names starting with .) are skipped and hidden directories are not read, unless this is True.
• follow_symlinks (default False): symbolic links to directories are only read if this is True. Every directory is read once at most, so symlink loops end. Symbolic links to files are always listed, broken links never.
• Errors: a missing directory raises FileNotFoundError, a file instead of a directory NotADirectoryError, and an unreadable directory PermissionError. An empty list therefore always means that no file matched.

FHIR file reader

Reads FHIR R4B resources from files as fhir.resources objects, together with the file and line they were read from. Combined with the directory reader:

from dic_helpers.directory_reader import DirectoryReader
from dic_helpers.fhir_file_reader import FHIRFileReader

paths = DirectoryReader("/data/export", patterns=["*.json", "*.ndjson", "*.xml", "*.gz"], recursive=True).list_files()
for item in FHIRFileReader(paths).resources():
    print(item.path, item.line, item.resource.get_resource_type(), item.resource.id)

Formats, by file extension (case-insensitive):

Other extensions are an error, the format is not guessed. Text is UTF-8, a byte order mark is allowed. Reading XML needs lxml: install dic-helper-toolkit[xml]. External entities are not resolved, an XML file that references one is invalid.

Parameters:

• paths: the files, read in this order; a single path can be given on its own. Resources come in the order they appear in each file. NDJSON files are read line by line, also compressed ones; JSON and XML files as a whole.
• unpack_bundles (default True): a Bundle gives the resources of its entries, of any Bundle type. Only the outermost Bundle is unpacked, entries without a resource are left out. With False the Bundle is returned.
• on_error (default "raise"): an unreadable or invalid file, NDJSON line or resource raises FHIRFileError, whose message starts with the file and line, e.g. export/Patient.ndjson:17: invalid JSON: … or patient.json: invalid Patient: birthDate: Date value string does not match spec regex.. With "skip" the message is logged as a warning, and reading continues with the next line (NDJSON) or the next file. A missing lxml is always an error.

License

dic-helper-toolkit is licensed under the MIT License.