As you know in Caché / IRIS you have the possibility to define a property as Multidimensional as documented here:
https://docs.intersystems.com/iris20201/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=GOBJ_proplit#GOBJ_proplit_multidim
and the explanation of how to use it
https://docs.intersystems.com/iris20201/csp/docbook/Doc.View.cls?KEY=GOBJ_proplit#GOBJ_proplit_multidim_values

Though the access is quite comfortable (in traditional COS sense) there are 2 main restrictions that hurt:

#1) It is not saved to disk unless your application includes code to save it specifically.
#2) It cannot be stored in or exposed through SQL tables
there are some more
I'll show how to overcome these limits

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In this article you will have access to the curated base of articles from the InterSystems Developer Community of the most relevant topics to learning InterSystems IRIS. Find top published articles ranked by Machine Learning, Embedded Python, JSON, API and REST Applications, Manage and Configure InterSystems Environments, Docker and Cloud, VSCode, SQL, Analytics/BI, Globals, Security, DevOps, Interoperability, Native API. Learn and Enjoy!

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Article
· Apr 25, 2020 2m read
Semi-Persistent Classes and Tables

If you define a Persistent Class / Table the class compiler generates for you an appropriate Storage definition.
A different option is to define a SQL mapping for an already existing Global storage. This has been excellently
explained already in a different series of articles. The Art of Mapping Globals to Classes 1 of 3

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Article
· Dec 20, 2021 1m read
Holiday Reading: What Lies Beneath!

For those of you who might be new to IRIS, and even those who have used Cache or IRIS for some time but want to explore beyond its usually-assumed boundaries and practices, you might want to dive into this detailed exploration of the database engine that is at its heart, and discover just what you can really do with it, going way beyond what InterSystems have done with it for you.

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Article
· May 20, 2016 12m read
Collations in Caché

Order is a necessity for everyone, but not everyone understands it in the same way
(Fausto Cercignani)

Disclaimer: This article uses Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet as examples, but is relevant for anyone who uses Caché in a non-English locale.
Please note that this article refers mostly to NLS collations, which are different than SQL collations. SQL collations (such as SQLUPPER, SQLSTRING, EXACT which means no collation, TRUNCATE, etc.) are actual functions that are explicitly applied to some values, and whose results are sometimes explicitly stored in the global subscripts. When stored in subscripts, these values would naturally follow the NLS collation in effect (“SQL and NLS Collations”).

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For some years I missed being able to offer, to everybody interested in ObjectScript, a tutorial more or less complete, to start with ObjectScript. Something that could help more and make things easier to those new developers that come to our technology... something intermediate, halfway between the common "Hello World!", that doesn't really get you further, and the "Advanced Training", that is unaffordable because of lack of time,etc.

If there were something truly helpful not only as an introduction to the ecosystem, but as a starting point, as a boost, to really start to walk into ObjectScript and move forward by yourself... wouldn't that be awesome?

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Article
· Jan 23 2m read
Global-Streams-to-SQL

In general Global Streams are data objects embedded in Classes / Tables.
Using and viewing them with SQL is normally a part of the access to the containing tables.

SO WHAT?

During debugging or searching for strange or unexpected behavior there could be the need to
get closer to the stored stream. No big problem with direct access to Globals with SMP or Terminal.
But with SQL you are lost.
So my tool provides dynamic access to Global Streams wherever you may need this
Special thanks to @Oliver Wilms for the inspiration for this tool.

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Article
· Jan 30 2m read
JSONfile-to-Global #1

The similarity between JSON objects + arrays and Globals in IRIS or Caché is evident.
With small and medium size JSON objects navigation across %Dynamic Objects is comfortable.
But with large and/or deep cascaded objects it becomes a challenge.

The presented tool offers 3 variants

  • loading an already existing %Dyamic object or Array into a global of your choice
  • loading a %Stream containing a JSON object into a global of your choice
  • loading an external File containing a JSON object into a global of your choice

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InterSystems IRIS currently limits classes to 999 properties.

But what to do if you need to store more data per object?

This article would answer this question (with the additional cameo of Community Python Gateway and how you can transfer wide datasets into Python).

The answer is very simple actually - InterSystems IRIS currently limits classes to 999 properties, but not to 999 primitives. The property in InterSystems IRIS can be an object with 999 properties and so on - the limit can be easily disregarded.

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The Art of Mapping Globals to Classes (4 of 3)

The forth in the trilogy, anyone a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan?

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.

If the above does not sound familiar to you please start at the beginning with the following:

The Art of Mapping Globals to Classes (1 of 3)

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Process-private Globals can be used as a data global in storage definition. That way, each process can have its own objects for the class with ppg storage. For example lets define a pool, which can:

  • add elements to a pool (ignoring duplicates)
  • check if an element exists in the pool

Here's the class:

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Article
· Nov 23, 2017 12m read
Where is my global stored?

It's well-known that namespace global mapping helps us to write code independent on database storage details (Caché instance name, directory path). But sometimes we can face problems accessing an unsubscripted global which has subscript level mapping (SLM) defined. Most of such cases are evident and associated with administrative tasks that should be done on database level, but some of them can confuse even an experienced developer. Just to start:

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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.

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