Article
· Jun 10, 2019 1m read
more usefull Object Dump

During testing your code you are often confronted with the need to examine
the actual content of an object. Either using ZWRITE or $system.OBJ.Dump()
you get a picture of simple properties as "--- attribute values ---"
while "--- swizzled references ---" are more confusing than informative
and with "--- calculated references ---" you are just left in the lurch.

This small helper class allows you to dump an object to terminal or
e.g in background to some stream for later review.
By default, you see just properties with content,

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Everybody has a testing environment.

Some people are lucky enough to have a totally separate environment to run production in.

-- Unknown

.

In this series of articles, I'd like to present and discuss several possible approaches toward software development with InterSystems technologies and GitLab. I will cover such topics as:

  • Git 101
  • Git flow (development process)
  • GitLab installation
  • GitLab WorkFlow
  • GitLab CI/CD
  • CI/CD with containers

This first part deals with the cornerstone of modern software development - Git version control system and various Git flows.

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Suppose you have developed your own app with InterSystems technologies stack and now want to perform multiple deployments on the customers' side. During the development process you've composed a detailed installation guide for your application, because you need to not only import classes, but also fine-tune the environment according to your needs.
To address this specific task, InterSystems has created a special tool called %Installer. Read on to find out how to use it.

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In this post I would like to talk about the syslog table. I will cover what it is, how you look at it, what the entries really are, and why it may be important to you. The syslog table can contain important diagnostic information. If your system is having any problems, it is important to understand how to look at this table and what information is contained there.

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Enterprises need to grow and manage their global computing infrastructures rapidly and efficiently while simultaneously optimizing and managing capital costs and expenses. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) computing and storage services meet the needs of the most demanding Caché based application by providing
 a highly robust global computing infrastructure.

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In my previous article, we reviewed possible use-cases for macros, so let’s now proceed to a more comprehensive example of macros usability. In this article we will design and build a logging system.

Logging system

Logging system is a useful tool for monitoring the work of an application that saves a lot of time during debugging and monitoring. Our system would consist of two parts:

  • Storage class (for log records)
  • Set of macros that automatically add a new record to the log

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Article
· Jul 8, 2020 7m read
Tips for debugging with %Status

Introduction

If you're solving complex problems in ObjectScript, you probably have a lot of code that works with %Status values. If you have interacted with persistent classes from an object perspective (%Save, %OpenId, etc.), you have almost certainly seen them. A %Status provides a wrapper around a localizable error message in InterSystems' platforms. An OK status ($$$OK) is just equal to 1, whereas a bad status ($$$ERROR(errorcode,arguments...)) is represented as a 0 followed by a space followed by a $ListBuild list with structured information about the error. $System.Status (see class reference) provides several handy APIs for working with %Status values; the class reference is helpful and I won't bother duplicating it here. There have been a few other useful articles/questions on the topic as well (see links at the end). My focus in this article will be on a few debugging tricks techniques rather than coding best practices (again, if you're looking for those, see links at the end).

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Introduction

In some of the last few articles I've talked about types between IRIS and Python, and it is clear that it's not that easy to access objects from one side at another.

Fortunately, work has already been done to create SQLAlchemy-iris (follow the link to see it on Open Exchange), which makes everything much easier for Python to access IRIS' objects, and I'm going to show the starters for that.

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Article
· Aug 2, 2022 8m read
Data models in InterSystems IRIS

Before we start talking about databases and different data models that exist, first we'd better talk about what a database is and how to use it.

A database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. It is used to store and retrieve structured, semi-structured, or raw data which is often related to a theme or activity.

At the heart of every database lies at least one model used to describe its data. And depending on the model it is based on, a database may have slightly different characteristics and store different types of data.

To write, retrieve, modify, sort, transform or print the information from the database, a software called Database Management System (DBMS) is used.

The size, capacity, and performance of databases and their respective DBMS have increased by several orders of magnitude. It has been made possible by technological advances in various areas, such as processors, computer memory, computer storage, and computer networks. In general, the development of database technology can be divided into four generations based on the data models or structure: navigational, relational, object and post-relational.

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This time I want to talk about something not specific to InterSystems IRIS, but that I think is important if you want to work with Docker and your server at work is a PC or laptop with Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise.

As you likely know, containers technology comes basically from Linux world and, nowadays, is on Linux hosts were it shows maximum potential. Those who use Windows on a normal basis see that both, Microsoft and Docker, have done important efforts during these last years that allow us to run containers based on Linux images on our Windows system in a really easy way... but it's something not supported for production systems and, this is the big problem, is not reliable if we want to keep persistent data outside of containers, in the host system,... mostly due to the big differences between Windows and Linux file systems. In the end, Docker for Windows itself uses a small linux virtual machine (MobiLinux) to run the containers... it does it transparently for the windows user... and it works perfectly well if, as I said, you don't require that your databases survive longer than the container...

Well,...let's get to the point,... the point is that many times, to avoid issues and simplify, we need a full Linux system and, if our server is based on Windows, the only way of having it is through a virtual machine. At least till WSL2 in Windows is released, but that will be another story and sure it'll take a bit of time to become robust enough.

In this article, I'll tell you, step by step, how to install an environment where you'll be able to work, if you need it, with Docker containers on an Ubuntu system in your Windows server. Let's go...

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Index to Articles

Hi All

It's been 6 weeks since my original article sad
- - - - -but I have been busy on this project

I have been looking at/thinking about a replacement for ZEN for around 12 months but only really started in depth 4 months ago.
Also been in IT for long enough that I can "get a feel" for a product/technology and make decisions accordingly without going into great detail.
Any new technology has a learning curve and I don't want to waste time and effort on something that won't fly.
And, as always, I am looking to minimise the learning curve as I want to concentrate on delivering business benefit.

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*** archived ***

The question has come up several times and I saw mixed answers and no quick example

My personal preference is using CPIPE device as you get back exactly the output you will get at the command line interface of your OS .
The tricky thing is to stop reading in time.
The example just displays what you normally see in your console.
it becomes useful if you look for things that you can't get from any $system.whatever()

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There are many ways to generate excel files using Intersystems, some of them are ZEN reports, IRIS reports ( Logi reports or formally known as JReports), or we can use third party Java libraries, the possibilities are almost endless.

But, what if you want to create a simple spreadsheet with only Caché ObjectScript? (no third party applications)

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Article
· Jun 19, 2023 8m read
Open AI integration with IRIS

As you all know, the world of artificial intelligence is already here, and everyone wants to use it to their benefit.

There are many platforms that offer artificial intelligence services for free, by subscription or private ones. However, the one that stands out because of the amount of "noise" it made in the world of computing is Open AI, mainy thanks to its most renowned services: ChatGPT and DALL-E.

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Article
· Mar 1, 2022 5m read
How to become a time lord - The birth

Good men don’t need rules.

The Doctor.

It's not an easy task to be a master of dates and times, it is always a problem and sometimes confusing in any programming language, we are going to clarify and put a few tips to make this task as simple as possible.

Get on the TARDIS and I'm going to turn you into a Time lord

Tardis

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InterSystems IRIS 2020.1 brings a broad set of improved and new capabilities to help build important applications. In addition to the many significant performance improvements accrued through 2019.1 and 2020.1, we are introducing one of our biggest changes in recent SQL history: the Universal Query Cache. This article provides more context on its impact to SQL-based applications at a technical level.

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Article
· Mar 17, 2021 3m read
Making the most of $Query

I ran into an interesting ObjectScript use case today with a general solution that I wanted to share.

Use case:

I have a JSON array (specifically, in my case, an array of issues from Jira) that I want to aggregate over a few fields - say, category, priority, and issue type. I then want to flatten the aggregates into a simple list with the total for each of the groups. Of course, for the aggregation, it makes sense to use a local array in the form:

agg(category, priority, type) = total

Such that for each record in the input array I can just:

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Article
· Feb 13, 2023 4m read
When to use Columnar Storage

With InterSystems IRIS 2022.2, we introduced Columnar Storage as a new option for persisting your IRIS SQL tables that can boost your analytical queries by an order of magnitude. The capability is marked as experimental in 2022.2 and 2022.3, but will "graduate" to a fully supported production capability in the upcoming 2023.1 release.

The product documentation and this introductory video, already describe the differences between row storage, still the default on IRIS and used throughout our customer base, and columnar table storage and provide high-level guidance on choosing the appropriate storage layout for your use case. In this article, we'll elaborate on this subject and share some recommendations based on industry-practice modelling principles, internal testing, and feedback from Early Access Program participants.

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Globals, these magic swords for storing data, have been around for a while, but not many people can use them efficiently or know about this super-weapon altogether.

If you use globals for tasks where they truly shine, the results may be amazing, either in terms of increased performance or dramatic simplification of the overall solution (1, 2).

Globals offer a special way of storing and processing data, which is completely different from SQL tables. They were first introduced in 1966 in the M(UMPS) programming language, which was initially used in medical databases. It is still used in the same way, but has also been adopted by some other industries where reliability and high performance are top priorities: finance, trading, etc.

Later M(UMPS) evolved into Caché ObjectScript (COS). COS was developed by InterSystems as a superset of M. The original language is still accepted by developers' community and alive in a few implementations. There are several signs of activity around the web: MUMPS Google group, Mumps User's group), effective ISO Standard, etc.

Modern global based DBMS supports transactions, journaling, replication, partitioning. It means that they can be used for building modern, reliable and fast distributed systems.

Globals do not restrict you to the boundaries of the relational model. They give you the freedom of creating data structures optimized for particular tasks. For many applications reasonable use of globals can be a real silver bullet offering speeds that developers of conventional relational applications can only dream of.

Globals as a method of storing data can be used in many modern programming languages, both high- and low-level. Therefore, this article will focus specifically on globals and not the language they once came from.

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Article
· Nov 11, 2017 3m read
Summary on Local Variable Scoping

This should be an overview over a subject that pops up over several places in online documentation mostly as remarks and never as dedicated chapter.

Once upon a time ... No it's not a fairy tale.
In the beginning of Caché (and before) you had your partition to run your code. Part of that partition was a space with all your local variables nicely sorted by %,A,..Z,a,...z

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