Article
· Nov 15, 2024 2m read
HL7 -> SDA -> FHIR -> Personal Growth

I have a large tree outside my window. Here in Phoenix, Arizona, USA it's still warm and sunny so our plants are still covered in lush foliage despite so many other places in the full throws of Autumn. My desk is oriented such that I can look out at the tree throughout the day.

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Article
· May 12 7m read
An Overview of Database Degrade

Introduction

Hello! In this article, I will be discussing database degrade, a type of data integrity issue one can face when using IRIS. First, I will be going over a review of the structure of IRIS databases. I'll then discuss how database degrade can manifest and common causes of degrade issues. I'll then conclude with general tips we give our customers about how to prevent or prepare for database degrade issues.

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It helps to remove special characters, such as non-utf-8 characters either control characters or unicode characters from text that is not printable or can't be parsed by downstream systems.

There is also $C(32) in this condition; sometimes NBSP appears in the text and it will not be recognized by TIE, but downstream it displays as "?".

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This article describes a significant enhancement of how InterSystems IRIS deals with table statistics, a crucial element for IRIS SQL processing, in the 2025.2 release. We'll start with a brief refresher on what table statistics are, how they are used, and why we needed this enhancement. Then, we'll dive into the details of the new infrastructure for collecting and saving table statistics, after which we'll zoom in onto what the change means in practice for your applications. We'll end with a few additional notes on patterns enabled by the new model, and look forward to the follow-on phases of this initial delivery.

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Article
· Nov 10, 2024 2m read
Java External Language Gateway

If you like Java and have a thriving Java ecosystem at work into which you need to incorporate IRIS, it's not a problem. Java External Language Gateway will do it seamlessly, almost. This gateway serves as a bridge between Java and Object Script in IRIS. You can create objects of Java classes in IRIS and call their methods. You just need a jar file to do this.

Connection diagram: proxy object <-> Gateway object <-> TCP/IP <-> External server <-> target object

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I encountered this quirk when investigating an unrelated issue affecting how Studio projects are handled in VS Code.

When you add the top level of the webapp to a %Studio.Project this inserts a %Studio.ProjectItem with a .DIR suffix. For example, if Studio or VS Code is connected to the USER namespace and you add the /csp/user webapp to a project the new ProjectItem name is "csp/user.DIR".

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Hi developers!

Observing the avalanche of AI-driven and vibe-coding developer tools that have been appearing lately almost every month with more and more exciting dev features, I was puzzled whether it is possible to leverage it with InterSystems IRIS. At least to build a frontend. And the answer - yes! At least with the approach I followed.

Here is my recipe to prompt the UI vs InterSystems IRIS Backend:

  1. Have the REST API on the IRIS side, which reflects some Open API (swagger) spec.
  2. Generate the UI with any vibe-coding tool (e.g., Lovable) and point the UI to the REST API endpoint.
  3. Profit!

Here is the result of my own exercise - a 100% prompted UI vs IRIS REST API that allows to list, create, update delete entries of a persistent class (Open Exchange, frontend source, video):

What is the recipe in detail?

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sql-embedding cover

InterSystems IRIS 2024 recently introduced the vector types.
This addition empowers developers to work with vector search, enabling efficient similarity searches, clustering, and a range of other applications.
In this article, we will delve into the intricacies of vector types, explore their applications, and provide practical examples to guide your implementation.

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When working with InterSystems IRIS, database developers and architects often face a critical decision: whether to use Dynamic SQL or Embedded SQL for querying and updating data. Both methods have their unique strengths and use cases, but understanding their performance implications is essential to making the right choice. Response time, a key metric in evaluating application performance, can vary significantly depending on the SQL approach used. Dynamic SQL offers flexibility, as queries can be constructed and executed at runtime, making it ideal for scenarios with unpredictable or highly variable query needs. Conversely, Embedded SQL emphasizes stability and efficiency by integrating SQL code directly into application logic, offering optimized response times for predefined query patterns.

In this article, I will explore the response times when using these two types of SQL and how they depend on different class structures and usage of parameters. So to do this, I'm going to use the following classes from the diagram:

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Prefer not to read? Check out the demo video I created:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-OwOAHC5b3s
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Article
· Feb 7 4m read
IRIS %Status and Exceptions

You may encounter errors during any point of program execution, and there are several ways to raise and handle these exceptions. In this article, we'll explore how exceptions are handled efficiently in IRIS.

One of the most commonly used return types is %Status, which is used by methods to indicate success or failure. Let's begin by discussing %Status values.

Working with %Status

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An effective source control solution allows organizations to manage complex codebases, facilitate seamless collaboration within development teams, and streamline deployment processes.

Sonic Healthcare, a leading provider of pathology, radiology, general practice, and corporate medical services, has significantly enhanced visibility and control over its complex environment by implementing Deltanji source control. The tight integration Deltanji provides with InterSystems IRIS and IRIS for Health has been central in achieving these improvements.

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In the modern world, the most valuable asset for companies is their data. Everything from business processes and applications to transactions is based on data which defines the success of the organization's operations, analysis, and decisions. In this scenario, the data structures need to be ready for frequent changes, yet in a managed and governed way. Otherwise, we will inevitably lose money, time, and quality of corporate solutions.

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In this article, exceptions are covered.

Working with Exceptions

Instead of returning a %Status response, you can raise and throw an Exception. You are then responsible for catching the exception and validating it. IRIS provides five main classes to handle exceptions effectively. Additionally, you can create custom exception class definition based on your needs.

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Introduction

In today's rapidly evolving threat landscape, organizations deploying mission-critical applications must implement robust security architectures that protect sensitive data while maintaining high availability and performance. This is especially crucial for enterprises utilizing advanced database management systems like InterSystems IRIS, which often powers applications handling highly sensitive healthcare, financial, or personal data.

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The Istio Service Mesh is commonly used to monitor communication between services in applications. The "battle-tested" sidecar mode is its most common implementation. It will add a sidecar container to each pod you have in your namespace that has Istio sidecar injection enabled.

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Here at InterSystems, we often deal with massive datasets of structured data. It’s not uncommon to see customers with tables spanning >100 fields and >1 billion rows, each table totaling hundred of GB of data. Now imagine joining two or three of these tables together, with a schema that wasn’t optimized for this specific use case. Just for fun, let’s say you have 10 years worth of EMR data from 20 different hospitals across your state, and you’ve been tasked with finding….

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I am just writing something to share what I encountered last night, which is the IRIS 2024.3 does not comes with Python by default any more!!!

Which means that I need to install it by myself!!😅 The pros is, I can select my python version😁🤭💃 The trouble is.... at the first place.... I don't know what I should do😥. By going through the community (I am much more prefer than the official document, sorry InterSystems document team😓 ), I found the following piece

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I implemented a Python Flask application for the 2024 Python Contest with a page that provides common form fields for an outgoing email such as the To and CC fields. And it lets you input a message as well as uploading text based attachments.

Then using LlamaIndex in Python, the app analyzes the content you put in and returns to you in a result box if there is anything that should stop you from sending that email.

Take a look at the Github repo here.

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Article
· Feb 14 5m read
HTTP and HTTPS with REST API

HTTP and HTTPS with REST API

Hello

The HTTP protocol allows you to obtain resources, such as HTML documents. It is the basis of any data exchange on the Web and a client-server protocol, meaning that requests are initiated by the recipient, usually a Web browser.

REST APIs take advantage of this protocol to exchange messages between client and server. This makes REST APIs fast, lightweight, and flexible. REST APIs use the HTTP verbs GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and others to indicate the actions they want to perform.

When we make a call to a RESt API, what actually happens is an HTTP call. The API receives this call and according to the requested verb and path, the API performs the desired action. In the case of the Iris implementation we can see this clearly in the URLMap definition area:

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