APPLICATION CODE CONVERSION ARCHITECTURE

A method and apparatus for converting codes between applications is provided. User defined conversion rules are applied to either convert an internal code into one or more external codes, or to convert one or more external codes into an internal code. Each code conversion rules specifies the conversion between an internal value and one or more external values, and may specify criteria that is met before the code conversion rule is applied. A set of code conversion rules are associated with a user defined code conversion category. The code category may be assigned to one or more fields. When a code is being converted for the field, a conversion rule associated with the code category is applied to convert the code. One or more user specified search key values define criteria for a code conversion rule that are met before the code conversion rule is applied. A user specifies fields that supply values to associate with codes that are being converted. The supplied values are compared with the search key values associated with a code conversion rule to determine whether the particular code conversion rule applies.