I only recently noticed the presence of a local database named CACHE alongside the more familiar CACHESYS, CACHELIB, CACHETEMP and CACHEAUDIT.

A bit of digging through the documentation archive led me to conclude that the CACHE database arrived in 2010.2, where the release notes say:

If your application is raising <PROTECT> errors and you're finding it hard to work out why, here's a way to get additional information.

First, if auditing is not already enabled, turn it on:

Then use "Configure System Events" (highlighted above) and locate the event named %System/%Security/Protect. In the screenshot below I used the Filter field to do this (type "protect" - highlighted below - and press TAB):

InterSystems technologies are renowned for their high performing databases, which support the systems and operations of many organisations. However a key ingredient to this success is the quality and maintainability of their code.

The quality of code can impact everything from speed and ease of fixing bugs and making enhancements, to the overall performance of your organization and your ability to get ahead in the marketplace.

By ensuring your code is maintainable, you can reduce approximately 75% of the systems life cycle costs*. This is why, at George James Software, the solutions we build are always straightforward and written in high quality code - because we know that this solid foundation can positively impact the rest of your organization.

With a maintainable system you're able to reduce your overall maintenance as any issues that occur are significantly faster to identify and fix. This means you're free to allocate that time and budget to enhancements, enabling you to get the most value out of your applications and ultimately better support your organization.

Keep an eye out for our next few posts about what a maintainable system looks like and the tools that can help you keep your code maintainable, in order to help you to reduce those maintenance costs.

InterSystems FAQ rubric

For routines (*.mac)

You can hide the source by exporting/importing only the *.obj that is generated after compiling the source program.

The command execution example specifies EX1Sample.obj and EX2Sample.obj, which are generated by compiling EX1Sample.mac and EX2Sample.mac, as export targets and exports them to the second argument file.

After moving to another namespace, I am using the exported XML file to perform the import.

Over the years, I have found myself needing to create multiple HL7 messages based on a single inbound message. Usually these take the form of an order or result from a lab. Each time I have approached it, I have tried to start from scratch under the belief that the previous attempt could have been done better.

InterSystems FAQ rubric

The class %Compiler.UDL.TextServices arrived in 2015.1, bringing us methods for exporting a class in UDL format (i.e. looking just like we're used to seeing it in Studio), and importing a UDL format definition back into a namespace. Some source control tools including our Deltanji are now able to use UDL format, resulting in diffs that are easier to understand.

IRIS Interoperability Productions formerly known as Ensemble are fun to work with. Yes, I really think my work is fun. I have seen File Passthrough Services and File Passthrough Operations come in handy. At one point we placed test messages in files, then we utilized a File Passthrough Service with Inbound File Adapter to send the contents of the file as a Stream to a File Passthrough Operation with Outbound TCP Adapter.

Now that 2016.1 has been released I would like to draw everyone's attention to the Ensemble release notes that describes the new features.

I think WebTerminal is an outstanding project, kudos to @Nikita Savchenko

I'm pleased to see this in the documentation of the just-published 2017.1 Field Test of Ensemble:

"In certain circumstances, it is useful to create namespaces that are not enabled for Ensemble. In this release you can do this by clearing the Make this an Ensemble namespace checkbox when creating a new namespace. "

Amongst the large fonts and chunky icons of Portal's pages, the Menu button in the top left corner is easily overlooked:

When clicked, it often produces the following menu:

When I remember it's there, I find the "View Console Log" option particularly handy.

I wrote "often" above because I've also noticed that the Menu contents change when I'm on a page within the Ensemble section of Portal:

In case you've never used the "About" link at the top of Management Portal, here's a screenshot of the kind of information it shows. I've highlighted the link and some of the information I find it handy to get from here.

If you work with Portal on multiple instances of Caché, Ensemble or HealthShare you might find it useful to set the System Mode of the various instances, so as to give yourself a visual reminder of the role of the one you're currently working on.

For instance: