#InterSystems IRIS

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InterSystems IRIS is a Complete Data Platform
InterSystems IRIS gives you everything you need to capture, share, understand, and act upon your organization’s most valuable asset – your data.
As a complete platform, InterSystems IRIS eliminates the need to integrate multiple development technologies. Applications require less code, fewer system resources, and less maintenance.

Article Muhammad Waseem · Jul 2, 2023 4m read

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Hi Community
In this article, I will introduce my application irisChatGPT which is built on LangChain Framework.
First of all, let us have a brief overview of the framework.

The entire world is talking about ChatGPT and how Large Language Models(LLMs) have become so powerful and has been performing beyond expectations, giving human-like conversations. This is just the beginning of how this can be applied to every enterprise and every domain! 

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Article Murray Oldfield · Mar 8, 2016 8m read

Your application is deployed and everything is running fine. Great, hi-five! Then out of the blue the phone starts to ring off the hook – it’s users complaining that the application is sometimes ‘slow’. But what does that mean? Sometimes? What tools do you have and what statistics should you be looking at to find and resolve this slowness? Is your system infrastructure up to the task of the user load? What infrastructure design questions should you have asked before you went into production? How can you capacity plan for new hardware with confidence and without over-spec'ing? How can you stop the phone ringing? How could you have stopped it ringing in the first place?

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Article Evgeny Shvarov · Mar 20, 2020 3m read

Hi colleagues!

Every day Johns Hopkins University publishes new data on coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic status.

I built a simple InterSystems IRIS Analytics dashboard using InterSystems IRIS Community Edition in docker deployed on GCP Kubernetes which shows key measures of the disease outbreak.

This dashboard is an example of how information from CSV could be analyzed with IRIS Analytics and deployed to GCP Kubernetes in a form of InterSystems IRIS Community Edition.

Added the interactive map of the USA:

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Article Evgeny Shvarov · Oct 27, 2019 2m read

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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Article Evgeny Shvarov · Jan 25, 2024 2m read

Hi Devs!

Recently I was impressed by @Dan Pasco's article where he shares also how he uses terminal aliases. 

Terminal aliases is a very powerful tool for developers and sys admins if you often need to call some cumbersome terminal expressions and make it shorter and cleaner. Here is the documentation.
Yes! 

But what about Docker environments? What if you are fan of Docker dev environments but also want to keep using your favorite aliases with Docker as well?

Turned out it is very possible.

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Article Yuri Marx · Mar 1, 2021 3m read

I'm participating in the Developing with InterSystems Objects and SQL with Joel Solon. The course is very nice and I will share with you some tips I got during the training. Tips presented in the day 4:

  1. All data are stored in Globals and Global names start with ^. Example of global: ^animal. Global can have multiples locations to the data ("sub data"). Example: ^animal(1).
  2. ^%* globals are accessible from any system-wide (from any namespace).
  3. Globals enables IRIS to support multimodel data (object, relational, document, multidimensional, etc).
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Article Vachan C Rannore · Oct 21, 2025 3m read

Hello!!!

Data migration often sounds like a simple "move data from A to B task" until you actually do it. In reality, it is a complex process that blends planning, validation, testing, and technical precision.

Over several projects where I handled data migration into a HIS which runs on IRIS (TrakCare), I realized that success comes from a mix of discipline and automation.

Here are a few points which I want to highlight.

1. Start with a Defined Data Format.

Before you even open your first file, make sure everyone, especially data providers, clearly understands the exact data format you expect. Defining templates early avoids unnecessary bank-and-forth and rework later. 

While Excel or CSV formats are common, I personally feel using a tab-delimited text file (.txt) for data upload is best. It's lightweight, consistent, and avoids issues with commas inside text fields. 

PatID   DOB Gender  AdmDate
10001   2000-01-02  M   2025-10-01
10002   1998-01-05  F   2025-10-05
10005   1980-08-23  M   2025-10-15

Make sure that the date formats given in the file is correct and constant throughout the file because all these files are usually converted from an Excel file and an Basic excel user might make mistakes while giving you the date formats wrong. Wrong date formats can irritate you while converting into horolog.

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Article Bob Binstock · May 16, 2018 6m read

InterSystems supports use of the InterSystems IRIS Docker images it provides on Linux only. Rather than executing containers as native processes, as on Linux platforms, Docker for Windows creates a Linux VM running under Hyper-V, the Windows virtualizer, to host containers. These additional layers add complexity that prevents InterSystems from supporting Docker for Windows at this time.

We understand, however, that for testing and other specific purposes, you may want to run InterSystems IRIS-based containers from InterSystems under Docker for Windows.

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Article Kyle Baxter · Oct 10, 2019 2m read

Are you all ready for something you wish you knew ages ago (or, in my case, a DECADE ago)?  Open up a portal in your favorite instance and go to:

System Administration->Configuration->Additional Settings->Startup

Scroll down to "Terminal Prompt" and click 'Edit'.  This allows you to edit what you see on your terminal prompt.  You can change that to my current setting: 8,3,2

What does this do?  It adds your instance name for your prompt.

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Article Steve Pisani · Apr 3, 2024 2m read

Hi - Recently I have been investigating an annoying situation whilst editing ObjectScript classes or routines in VSCode.

What was happening to me was, as I was typing in lines of code into my class (for example, adding a new Method, or changing the Class signature, or a block of code),  this would quickly get syntax checked, re-formatted, and compiled - inevitably, (since I would be mid-way through my typing), this would generate compilation errors.

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Article Jinyao · Feb 21, 2025 4m read

Motivation

I didn't know about ObjectScript until I started my new job. Objectscript isn't actually a young programming language. Compared to C++, Java and Python, the community isn't as active, but we're keen to make this place more vibrant, aren't we?

 

I've noticed that some of my colleagues are finding it tricky to get their heads around the class relationships in these huge projects. There aren't any easy-to-use modern class diagram tool for ObjectScript.

Related Work

I have tried relavant works:

- InterSystems class view:
1. https://github.

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Article Henry Pereira · Dec 1, 2021 5m read

freepik- freepik.com First of all, what is data anonymization?

According to Wikipedia:

Data anonymization is a type of information sanitization whose intent is privacy protection. It is the process of removing personally identifiable information from data sets, so that the people whom the data describe remain anonymous.

In other words, the data anonymization is a process that retains the data but keeps the source anonymous. Depending on the adopted anonymization technique the data is redacted, masked or substituted.

And that is the purpose of iris-Disguise, to provide a set of anonymization tools.

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Article Lorenzo Scalese · Nov 15, 2020 8m read

Hi Community,   OpenAPI-Client Gen has just released, this is an application to create an IRIS Interoperability Production client from Swagger 2.0 specification.   Instead of the existing tool ^%REST that creates a server-side REST application, OpenAPI-Client Gen creates a complete REST Interoperability Production client template.

 

Install by ZPM:

zpm "install openapi-client-gen"

  How to generate production from Swagger document?   It's very simple.

Open a terminal and execute:

Set sc = ##class(dc.openapi.client.Spec).generateApp(<applicationName>, <Your Swagger 2.
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Article Daniel Kutac · Aug 10, 2016 22m read

Created by Daniel Kutac, Sales Engineer, InterSystems

Warning: if you get confused by URLs used: the original series used screens from machine called dk-gs2016. The new screenshots are taken from a different machine. You can safely treat url WIN-U9J96QBJSAG as if it was dk-gs2016.

Part 2. Authorization server, OpenID Connect server

In the previous part of this short series, we have learned about simple use case – acting as an OAUTH[1] client. Now, it’s time to bring our experience to a whole new level.

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Article Yuri Marx · Dec 16, 2024 2m read

The best way to list, edit, save and delete globals is using an IDE. Now, it is possible if you use VSCode. It is also possible to save globals using yaml files. Perform the following steps:

1. Get an InterSystems IRIS instance and install the application iris-global-yaml: 

zpm:USER>install iris-global-yaml

2. If you just to want an InterSystems IRIS trial for tests git clone and run on docker:

git clone https://github.com/yurimarx/iris-global-yaml.git
docker-compose up -d --build

3. Go to https://openexchange.intersystems.

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Article Jose-Tomas Salvador · Apr 8, 2020 6m read

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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Article Timothy Leavitt · Jan 21, 2022 7m read

@Ming Zhou asked a great question in https://community.intersystems.com/post/how-get-all-properties-defined-… and the answer sums up exactly why ObjectScript is my favorite.

When I'm first describing ObjectScript or IRIS to someone I always explain that you can write a class, compile it, get a table, and work with your data from an object or relational perspective - whichever is most natural.

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Article Guillaume Rongier · Mar 8, 2023 5m read

iris-docker-multi-stage-script

A python script to keep your docker iris images in shape ;)

Witout changing your dockerfile or your code you can reduce the size of your image by 50% or more !

TL;DR

Name the builder image builder and the final image final and add this to end of your Dockerfile:

Modify your Dockerfile to use a multi-stage build:

ARG IMAGE=intersystemsdc/irishealth-community:latest
FROM $IMAGE as builder

Add this to end of your Dockerfile:

FROM $IMAGE as final

ADD --chown=${ISC_PACKAGE_MGRUSER}:${ISC_PACKAGE_IRISGROUP} https://github.com/grongierisc/iris-docker-multi-stage-script/releases/latest/download/copy-data.py /irisdev/app/copy-data.py

RUN --mount=type=bind,source=/,target=/builder/root,from=builder \
    cp -f /builder/root/usr/irissys/iris.cpf /usr/irissys/iris.cpf && \
    python3 /irisdev/app/copy-data.py -c /usr/irissys/iris.cpf -d /builder/root/ 

Boom! You're done!

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Article Beatrice Zorzoli · Sep 10, 2025 4m read

I joined InterSystems less than a year ago. Diving into ObjectScript and IRIS was exciting, but also full of small surprises that tripped me up at the beginning. In this article I collect the most common mistakes I, and many new colleagues, make, explain why they happen, and show concrete examples and practical fixes. My goal is to help other new developers save time and avoid the same bumps in the road.

 

1. Getting lost among system classes and where to start

The issue: ObjectScript/IRIS ships with many system classes and packages (%Library, %SYS, %Persistent, %SQL, etc.).

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Article Eduard Lebedyuk · Apr 12, 2019 1m read

This series of articles would cover Python Gateway for InterSystems Data Platforms. Leverage modern AI/ML tools and execute Python code and more from InterSystems IRIS. This project brings you the power of Python right into your InterSystems IRIS environment:

  • Execute arbitrary Python code
  • Seamlessly transfer data from InterSystems IRIS into Python
  • Build intelligent Interoperability business processes with Python Interoperability Adapter
  • Save, examine, modify and restore Python context from InterSystems IRIS

Index

The plan for the series so far (subject to change).

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Article Benjamin De Boe · Sep 19, 2017 4m read

Last week, we announced the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, our new and comprehensive platform for all your data endeavours, whether transactional, analytics or both. We've included many of the features our customers know and loved from Caché and Ensemble, but in this article we'll shed a little more light on one of the new capabilities of the platform: SQL Sharding, a powerful new feature in our scalability story.

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Article Evgeny Shvarov · Feb 19, 2022 2m read

Hi developers!

As you probably noticed in IRIS 2021 the names of globals are random.

And if you create IRIS classes with DDL and want to be sure what global was created you probably would want to provide a name.

And indeed you can do it. 

Use WITH %CLASSPARAMETER DEFAULTGLOBAL='^GLobalName' in CREATE Table to make it work. Documentation. See the example below:

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Article Guillaume Rongier · May 31, 2023 6m read

I'm proud to announce the new release of iris-pex-embedded-python (v2.3.1) with a new command line interface.

This command line is called iop for Interoperability On Python.

First I would like to present in few words the project the main changes since the version 1.

A breif history of the project

Version 1.0 was a proof of concept to show how the interoperability framework of IRIS can be used with a python first approach while remaining compatible with any existing ObjectScript code.

What does it mean? It means that any python developer can use the IRIS interoperability framework without any knowledge of ObjectScript.

Example :

from grongier.pex import BusinessOperation

class MyBusinessOperation(BusinessOperation):

    def on_message(self, request):
        self.log.info("Received request")

Great, isn't it?

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Article Yuri Marx · May 22, 2023 6m read

Nowadays, most applications are deployed on public cloud services. It brings many advantages including savings in human and material resources, the ability to grow quickly and cheaply, greater availability, reliability, elastic scalability, and options to improve the protection of digital assets. One of the most popular options is AWS. It allows us to deploy our applications usings virtual machines (EC2 service), Docker containers (ECS service), or Kubernetes (EKS service).

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Article Renato Banzai · Jul 14, 2020 5m read

This is my introduction to a series of posts explaining how to create an end-to-end Machine Learning system.

Starting with one problem

Our IRIS Development Community has several posts without tags or wrong tagged. As the posts keep growing the organization of each tag and the experience of any community member browsing the subjects tends to decrease.

First solutions in mind

We can think some usual solutions for this scenario, like:

  • Take a volunteer to read all posts and fix the mistakes.
  • Pay a company to fix all mistakes.
  • Send an email to each post writer to review the texts from past.
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