Hi Community,


In this article, I will introduce Python Flask Web Framework. Together we will create a minimal web application to connect to IRIS and get data from it.

Below you can find the steps we will need to follow:

• Step 1 : Introduction to Python Flask Web Framework
• Step 2 : Installation of Flask module
• Step 3 : Creation of web application using Flask
• Step 4 : Use of HTML Templates
• Step 5 : Installation of IRIS Python Native module
• Step 6 : Establishment of a connection with IRIS
• Step 7 : Transferring data from IRIS to Flask and displaying it

So Let's start with step 1

Step1-Introduction to Python Flask Web Framework

Flask is a small and lightweight Python web framework that provides useful tools and features that make creating web applications in Python easier. It gives developers flexibility and is a more accessible framework for new developers since it allows to build a web application quickly using only a single Python file. Flask is also extensible and doesn’t requires a particular directory structure or complicated boilerplate code before getting started.

For more details please view Flask Documentations

The Art of Mapping Globals to Classes (2 of 3)

If you are looking to breathe new life into an old MUMPS application follow these steps to map your globals to classes and expose all that beautiful data to Objects and SQL.

This example is going to cram in 4 or 5 different things beyond what was covered in Part 1

Hi Everyone,

Link to webinar recording: https://learning.intersystems.com/course/view.php?id=623

Thank you for your interest in this webinar!

Please submit questions about the content of the webinar as comments below this article.

Making a blog using Python + IRIS Globals

Since I started to use internet (late 90's), I always had a CMS (content management system) present to make easier post
any information in a blog, social media or even an enterprise page. And later years putting all my code into github I
used to document it on a markdown file. Observing how easy could be persisting data into Intersystems IRIS with the
Native API I decided to make this application and force myself to forget a little of SQL and stay open to key-value database
model.

Globals are the core of the InterSystems IRIS for data persistence. It is flexible, allowing store JSON documents, relational data, object oriented data, OLAP cubes and custom data models, like Mindmaps. To see how to store, delete and get mindmap data using globals, follow these steps:

1. Clone/git pull the repo into any local directory

When I describe InterSystems IRIS to more technically-minded people, I always start with how it is a multimodel DBMS at its core.

In my opinion that is its main advantage (on the DBMS side). And the data is stored only once. You just choose the access API you want to use.

The power of the presented tool becomes visible with a large JSON file.
The example I have prepared is composed of the daily results of AoC 2023.
Anonymization makes it usable for demo purposes.

Hey developers!

Sometimes we need to insert or refer to the data of classes directly in globals.

And maybe a lot of you expect that data structure of global with records is:

^Sample.Person(Id)=$listbuild("",col1,col2,...,coln).

And this article is a heads up, that this is not always true, don't expect it as granted!

You may have seen my series of articles on GlobalToJSON closing with Embedded Python.
And to me, Embedded means inside a Class and not PEX or other external variants.
The first variants showed that ePy is not an ultimate requirement. ISOS/COS may do it as well.
Here I try to position ePy inside IRIS.

This example demonstrates the difference you may experience when you write to
Gllobals directly from Embedded Python compared to native ObjectScript.

To make this demo useful I start 2 background jobs that simply write sequentially
to a dedicated global. A common control method signals for a synchronous start.
Similar a common stop & view interrupts data feeding.

That's the principle process:

This package offers a utility to export an XLarge Global into a JSON object file and to show
or import it again. In a previous example, this all was processed in memory. But if this is a
large Global you may either experience <MAXSTRING> or an <STORE> error
if the generated JSON structure exceeds available memory.

Motivation

This project was thought of when I was thinking of how to let Python code deal naturally with the scalable storage and efficient retrieving mechanism given by IRIS globals, through Embedded Python.

My initial idea was to create a kind of Python dictionary implementation using globals, but soon I realized that I should deal with object abstraction first.

So, I started creating some Python classes that could wrap Python objects, storing and retrieving their data in globals, i.e., serializing and deserializing Python objects in IRIS globals.

JSON is a lightweight data interchange format for representing and exchanging data between a server and a web application. Its popularity has led to its widespread use in applications based on InterSystems technology, as well as demand for a converter that transforms globals to JSON and back. Therefore, @Evgeny Shvarov suggested developing Global->JSON->Global converter. Implementing such a converter is important to ensure interoperability, simplify data exchange, support web services, and provide a standardized approach to data representation across different software ecosystems. This article, the second in the "Implemented Ideas" series, focuses on several projects created by the legend of InterSystems Developer Community @Robert Cemper that deal with this task:

• GlobalToJSON-Compact
• GlobalToJSON-Efficient
• GlobalToJSON-Academic
• GlobalToJSON-embeddedPython
• GlobalToJSON-ePython-pure
• GlobalToJSON-XLA
• JSONfile-to-Global.

VSCode is the most used IDE in the world. It is strategic have more extensions for VSCode for InterSystems technologies to keep increasing the developer community.

My new app IRIS VSCode Global Editor is an excellent sample to learn how to create extensions to IRIS. You can check it on https://openexchange.intersystems.com/package/IRIS-Global-VSCode-Editor.