Hi guys!

Was coding today with InterSystems IRIS in a docker container and decided to share with you the commands you may find useful in everyday coding.

# docker-compose build

command to build a container. Remember, it is useful if you have dockerfile in the repo.

if the build is successful call the following to launch it:

# docker-compose up -d

Find IRIS management portal on:

localhost:port/csp/sys/%25CSP.Portal.Home.zen?$NAMESPACE=%25SYS

where the port is what you set in docker-compose.yml - 52775 in this case.

Run the following if you want to launch a terminal session inside IRIS container:

# docker-compose iris iris session iris

gfhj gj 


sdfdsfsdf





USER>

And run the following to shut down the container:

# docker-compose down

Troubleshooting

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Hi Developers!

Those who use Dockerfile to work with InterSystems IRIS often need to execute several lines of ObjectScript. For me, this was a game of "escaping this and that" every time just to shoot a few commands on ObjectScript to IRIS. Ideally, I'd prefer to code ObjectScript without any quotes and escaping.

Recently I found a nice "hack" on how this could be improved to exactly this state. I got this from @Dmitry Maslennikov's repo and this lets you use Objectscript in a way as you would type it in IRIS terminal.

Here is what you have in dockerfile:

///
COPY irissession.sh /
SHELL ["/irissession.sh"]
RUN \
  do $SYSTEM.OBJ.Load("Installer.cls", "ck") \
  set sc = ##class(App.Installer).setup()
# bringing the standard shell back
SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
CMD [ "-l", "/usr/irissys/mgr/messages.log" ]
///

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This is a continuation of my story about the development of my project isc-tar started in the first part.

Just having tests is not enough, it does not mean that you will run tests after all changes. Running tests should be automated, and when you cover all your functionality with tests, everything should work well after any change in any place. And Continuous Integration (CI) helps to keep the code and deployment procedure with as fewer bugs as possible and automates the routine procedures, like publishing releases.

I use GitHub to store the source code. And some time ago GitHub started to work on its own CI/CD platform and named it GitHub Actions. It is not widely available, yet. You have to be signed as a beta tester for this feature, as I did. GitHub Actions uses quite a different way how to deal with a build workflow. What is important that Github Actions allows to use Docker, and it’s quite easy to customize available actions. And interesting that GitHub Actions is really much bigger than any classic CI like we have in Travis, Circle or Gitlab CI and so on. You can find more in the official documentation.

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Article
· May 30, 2019 2m read
BackgroundJobs over ECP

Running a Background Job using the JOB command is a well-known feature.
Using ECP to distribute databases to several servers is also well-known.
But using the combination of both to run a process on a different server
seems to be a rare case.

Sure there are enough other ways to start a remote job, but the special
combination with ECP where the application server starts a process on a
data server without additional networking is worth to be remembered.

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A few years ago, I was teaching the basics of our %UnitTest framework during Caché Foundations class (now called Developing Using InterSystems Objects and SQL). A student asked if it was possible to collect performance statistics while running unit tests. A few weeks later, I added some additional code to the %UnitTest examples to answer this question. I’m finally sharing it on the Community.

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AnalyzeThis is a tool for getting a personalized preview of your own data inside of InterSystems BI. This allows you to get first hand experience with InterSystems BI and understand the power and value it can bring to your organization. In addition to getting a personalized preview of InterSystems BI through an import of a CSV file with your data, Classes and SQL Queries are now supported as Data Sources in v1.1.0!

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Article
· Dec 9, 2019 1m read
SUDOKU demo

A demo in traditional style COS

This was written based on a previous trial in .XLS
It is far from being perfect. Rather a challenge for
improvement in all directions (code, interface, ...)
So anyone feel invited to make it better.

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Article
· May 29, 2019 1m read
Simple Remote Server Control

This example is extracted from a long-running installation.
The purpose is to have simple monitoring of several servers at a rather primitive level.
Just slightly more intelligent than a raw PING. But still easy to integrate.
It avoids the overkill of information you are often confronted with while you are just
interested in the number of active processes or similar basic figures.
The example shows a basic skeleton that might be easily filled by your real needs.

It consists of 3 sections:

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Hi guys!

Portrait of Madame X, Gustave Caillebotte.

One of the features I like in InterSystems ObjectScript is how you can process array transformations in a specific method or a function.

Usually when we say "process an array" we assume a very straightforward algorithm which loops through an array and does something with its entries upon a certain rule.

The trick is how you transfer an array to work with into a function.

One of the nice approaches on how to pass the information about an array is using $Name and Indirection operator.

Below you can find a very simple example which illustrates the thing.

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Article
· Jul 12, 2019 2m read
Basic Database Metrics example

This is a self contained class that can be run from the Intersystems Task Scheduler which records peak usage details for databases and licenses built up throughout the day and retaining 30 days history.

To schedule the task to run every hour:

d ##class(Metrics.Task).Schedule()

You can also specify your own start time, stop time, and run interval:

d ##class(Metrics.Task).Schedule(startTime, stopTime, intervalMins)

Metrics are stored in ^Metrics in the namespace that the class resides in/is run from.

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I am just recently announced my project isc-tar. But sometimes it is not less interesting what’s behind the scene: how it was built, how it works and what happens around the project. Here is the story:

  • How to develop this project
  • How to test it
  • How to release new versions for publishing
  • And finally how to automate all above
  • Continuous integration

So, I would like to tell all about it.

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This quick guide shows how to serve HTTPS requests with InterSystems API Management. Advantage here is that you have your certs on one separated server and you don't need to configure each backend web-server separately.

Here's how:

1. Buy the domain name.

2. Adjust DNS records from your domain to the IAM IP address.

3. Generate HTTPS certificate and private key. I use Let's Encrypt - it's free.

4. Start IAM if you didn't already.

5. Send this request to IAM:

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This is a quick note on what happens when, on your CSP page, you call a cache script which returns a %Boolean and store that value in a javascript variable.

When you call a script with language="cache" and returntype="%Boolean" from a javascript script, the return value is interpreted as a string, not as a boolean.

Here's an example:

A cache script that returns (in theory) a "false" value:

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Why log in to view pivot tables when you can have them delivered directly to your inbox? Are you in need of automated reporting for InterSystems IRIS Business Intelligence? Pivot Subscriptions is your solution: a tool for subscribing to scheduled email reports of pivot tables inside InterSystems IRIS Business Intelligence (previously known as DeepSee).

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Article
· Feb 8, 2019 2m read
Client Websockets based CSP

The Caché / Ensemble standard distribution contains in namespace SAMPLES
a nice example of a CSP page consuming WebService as a Client.
I have modified it not only to display the replies but to feed them back into a Global.
I used the classic Hyperevent to achieve this. The replies end up as a log in global^WSREPLY.
When there is no input anymore the page closes and goes away.

There are 2 versions with visible and hidden display during operation.
dc.WSCSP.reverseVerbose.cls and dc.WSCSP.reverseHidden.cls

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Article
· Mar 31, 2019 20m read
How to write the home address right?

How Tax Service, OpenStreetMap, and InterSystems IRIS
could help developers get clean addresses

Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Paying the Tax (The Tax Collector), 1640

In my previous article, we just skimmed the surface of objects. Let's continue our reconnaissance. Today's topic is a tough one. It's not quite BIG DATA, but it's still the data not easy to work with: we're talking about fairly large amounts of data. It won't all fit into RAM at once, and some of it won't even fit on the drive (not due to lack of space, but because there's a lot of junk). The name of our subject is FIAS DB: the Federal Information Address System database - the databases of addresses in Russia. The archive is 5.5 GB. And it's a compressed XML file. After extraction, it will be a full 53 GB (set aside 110 GB for extraction). And when you start to parse and convert it, that 110 GB won't be enough. There won't be enough RAM either.

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Hi Developers!

As discussed in previous parts of Package Manager stories to turn your IRIS application into a deployable package you just need to introduce the module.xml file into the root folder of the repository and describe all the resources.

I’m pleased to introduce you to a new project template on Open Exchange which contains examples of how to make different types of resources of your InterSystems IRIS application a part of the ObjectScript package and so make the deployable ObjectSctipt package.

Let's see how you can describe your application resources using this template project as an example.

See the details below.

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Article
· Jul 1, 2019 2m read
Transaction suspencion

It’s often useful to make changes inside the current transaction, that would not be rolled-back if transaction is rolled-back. For example to do some logging.

This can be achieved by using global that is mapped to temporary database -- IRISTEMP. All globals that start with ^IRIS.Temp* are mapped to IRISTEMP by default. Problem with such approach is that IRISTEMP is cleaned on InterSystems IRIS restart, so this log is lost.

What else you can do is -- suspend transaction temporarily, do the logging, and then resume the same transaction.

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Object Synchronization is a feature that has been around for a while, since Caché days, but I wanted to explore a bit more how it works. I've always thought that database automatic synchronization is complex by nature but, for some particular scenarios shouldn't be so hard. So I considered a very simple use case (OK, perhaps the typical one, I'm not discovering anything... but if it's common and it works, it's good wink ).

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