#InterSystems IRIS

It appears as though command history is not available via up/down arrow keyboard keys when using the SQL Shell. Is there anything in the works to change that?

Also, typing the colon character (:) as the first character after the prompt in Terminal Lite does odd things in 2025.1.1 ... every keystroke starting with the colon is echoed back and pressing Enter generates an error:

The red :SQL on the first line was echoed simultaneously as the :SQL in white was typed. Also, it's obvious that aliases don't work in Terminal Lite 😉

IrisTest is a light weight, powerful, user-friendly tool designed to simplify unit test report generation. It includes an interactive shell and API to facilitate communication, allowing developers to easily manage and generate reports for their test runs in various formats. Whether you're debugging or creating detailed reports for analysis, IrisTest makes the process smooth and efficient!

Reviewing my published packages, I identified a nasty bug in IRIS Native API

• There is a method in  %Net.DB.Iris named function ()
• It's equivalent to  ObjectScript $$label^routine(param) 
• It used to work fine 2 years ago, when I published my command-line-extension packages
• Now it is broken since at least 1 year and throws <PROTECT>
• I identified it for ObjecScript, Java, Python, Node.js
• It is reported as WRC# 1002589
• For all 4 cases, I also verified a workaround
  • Instead of calling an ObjectScript Function you call a Classmethod
  • It's by %Net.DB.Iris ClassMethodValue(.

If you like what you see please support this in the Developer Tools 2025 contest. Voting closes at midnight EDT on Sunday 3rd.

Working in healthcare IT as a young developer, especially on InterSystems TrakCare, you quickly realize one thing: it’s not just about HL7 messages or backend integrations. A hugepart of making TrakCare work smoothly for hospitals comes down to how it’s configured, customized, and supported on the application side.

That’s where people like me come in—techno-functional developers who understand both the tech and how it impacts actual hospital workflows.

We’re Not Just Techies (or Functional Consultants)

Our role sits right in the middle.

Here is what I currently have:

<page xmlns="http://www.intersystems.

If you’ve ever watched a true artisan—whether a potter turning mud into a masterpiece or a luthier bringing raw wood to life as a marvelous guitar—you know that magic isn’t in the materials, but in care, craft, and process. I know this firsthand: my handmade electric guitar is a daily inspiration, but I’ll admit—creating something like that is a talent I don’t have.

Yet, in the digital world, I often see people hoping for “magic” from generative AI by typing vague, context-free prompts like “build an app.” The results are usually frustratingly shallow—no artistry, no finesse.

#InterSystems Demo Games entry

⏯️  AI Clinical Trial Platform

The Trial AI platform leverages InterSystems cloud services including the FHIR Transformation Service and IRIS Cloud SQL to assist with clinical trial recruitment, an expensive and prevalent problem. It does this by ingesting structured and unstructured healthcare data, then uses AI to help identify eligible patients.

Presenters:
🗣 @Vic Sun, Sales Engineer, InterSystems
🗣 @Mohamed Oukani, Senior Sales Engineer, InterSystems
🗣 @Bhavya Kandimalla, Sales Engineer, InterSystems

This article will introduce you to the concept of virtual environments in Python, which are essential for managing dependencies and isolating project from the OS.

What is a Virtual Environment?

A virtual environment is a folder that contains :

• A specific version of Python
• At start an empty site-packages directory

Virtual environments will help you to isolate your project from the OS Python installation and from other projects.

How to use it?

I am brand new to using AI. I downloaded some medical visit progress notes from my Patient Portal. I extracted text from PDF files. I found a YouTube video that showed how to extract metadata using an OpenAI query / prompt such as this one:

ollama-ai-iris/data/prompts/medical_progress_notes_prompt.txt at main · oliverwilms/ollama-ai-iris
 

I combined @Rodolfo Pscheidt Jr https://github.com/RodolfoPscheidtJr/ollama-ai-iris with some files from @Guillaume Rongier https://openexchange.intersystems.com/package/iris-rag-demo.

I attempted to run

python3 query_data.

Thirteen years ago, I attained dual undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and math, then promptly started full-time at InterSystems using neither. One of my most memorable and stomach-churning academic experiences was in Stats II. On an exam, I was solving a moderately difficult confidence interval problem. I was running out of time, so (being an engineer) I wrote out the definite integral on the exam paper, punched it into my graphing calculator, wrote an arrow with “calculator” over it, then wrote the result.

Overview

The extension and source code are now available
After having some discussions at Global Summit and using a lot of package managers in my day to day development (npm,nuget,Chocolatey, etc) in addition to recently using the InterSystems Package Manager for some CICD process I'm building using Intersystems IRIS and IRIS 4 Health, I wanted an easy and integrated way to search/view/install packages related to the Intersystems tech stack.

SQL injection remains one of the most critical vulnerabilities in database-driven applications, allowing attackers to manipulate queries and potentially access or compromise sensitive data. In InterSystems IRIS, developers have access to both Dynamic SQL and Embedded SQL, each with distinct characteristics. Understanding how to use them securely is essential for preventing SQL injection.

The Problem: Dynamic SQL and SQL Injection

Dynamic SQL constructs queries as strings at runtime. While this offers flexibility, it also creates a vulnerability if user input is not handled correctly.

Overview I'm excited to announce the release of testcontainers-iris-node, a Node.js library that makes it easy to spin up temporary InterSystems IRIS containers for integration and E2E testing. This project is a natural addition to the existing family of Testcontainers adapters for IRIS, including testcontainers-iris-python and testcontainers-iris-java.

Why testcontainers-iris-node? As a Node.js developer working with InterSystems IRIS, I often faced challenges when setting up test environments that mimic production. testcontainers-iris-node solves this by leveraging the testcontainers-node framework to create isolated IRIS environments on-demand.

This is particularly valuable for:

• Integration testing with IRIS databases
• Testing data pipelines or microservices
• Automating test environments in CI pipelines

Features

• Launches IRIS in Docker containers using Testcontainers
• Supports custom Docker images and configuration
• Wait strategies to ensure IRIS is ready before tests begin
• Clean teardown between test runs

Why Randomization is Key When Splitting Data for Machine Learning

Post:
Essentially, Machine Learning is about learning from data. Having "good" data leads to better models, and more importantly, the quality of the information being used plays a crucial role in improving prediction accuracy.

One critical step in the process is how we separate our data into training and validation sets. If this isn’t done properly, we risk introducing bias, overfitting, or unrealistic performance expectations for the model.

Well... It's time for testing. We know that often, it's already over. So, what now? Can I improve the quality of my development?

The answer is: YES. Yes, you can. The Toolqa tool aims to do just that. It's a facilitator. What's its goal?

To ensure that APIs meet pre-established business requirements, while also protecting against <sarcasm>  future failed attempts </sarcasm>  to destroy your application, website, app, or anything else that uses your API.

Now you might be wondering, how does this happen? Where's the magic?

The ToolQA.tool.

Hi everybody,

A customer would like to connect an IRIS database to Metabase BI.  But Metabase does not have a connector that supports the IRIS database.

Metabase only supports these databases:

- Amazon Athena
- BigQuery (Google Cloud Platform)
- Druid
- MongoDB (recommend version 4.2 or higher)
- MySQL (recommend version 8.0.33 or higher, as well as MariaDB version 10.4 or higher)
- Oracle
- PostgreSQL
- Presto
- Redshift (Amazon Web Services)
- Snowflake
- SparkSQL
- SQL Server
- SQLite
- Vertica

And a few others. 

However, it is possible to create a driver for Metabase that connect to IRIS.

Sometimes your client may request documentation of your BI or interoperability project in a formal document. In this case, MS Word is a good alternative, as it has an advanced editor that allows you to generate professional documentation. Now it's possible!
The iris4word app has this functionality!

Final MS Word Document	Word Template

iris4word business logic

the iris4word get BI asset list and metadata using the InterSystems IRIS BI REST API documented on (https://docs.intersystems.com/healthconnectlatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=D2CLIENT_rest_api).

Hello everyone,

I would like to ask whether it is possible to run InterSystems API manager (IAM) on OpenShift. Is there some documentation describing how to do it? I was searching the forum as well as the internet and I have not found much unfortunately.

Any hints would be highly appreciated.

Best regards

Martin Zukal

In this section, we will explore how to use Python as the primary language in IRIS, allowing you to write your application logic in Python while still leveraging the power of IRIS.

• Introduction Python First Approach in IRIS
  • How to use it (irispython)
    • What is irispython?
    • Example of using irispython
    • Pros
    • Cons
    • Conclusion
  • Using WSGI
    • How to use it
    • Example of using WSGI
    • Pros
    • Cons
    • Conclusion
  • DB-API
    • How to use it
    • Example of using DB-API
    • Pros
    • Cons
    • Alternatives
    • Conclusion
  • Notebook
    • How to use it
    • Example of using Notebook
    • Pros
    • Cons
    • Conclusion
• Bonus Section
  • Using a native interpreter (no irispython)
    • How to use it
    • Pros
    • Cons
  • DB-API Community Edition
    • How to use it
    • Example of using DB-API
    • Pros
    • Cons
  • Debugging Python Code in IRIS
    • How to use it
    • Pros
    • Cons
    • Conclusion
  • IoP (Interoperability on Python)
• Conclusion

Word documents are widely used in the market. Users frequently create contracts, memos, resumes, reports, analyses, and other documents that may require data from or captured by InterSystems IRIS. However, IRIS does not have an API, SDK, library, or adapter for this. This limitation no longer exists. 

The new Open Exchange library iris4word (https://openexchange.intersystems.com/package/iris4word) delivers an ObjectScript SDK where the developer passes any %DynamicObject as a parameter, a Word file template and then receives a ready document, with the structure and formatting defined in its template.

Let's start with a simple motivating question: over the past 14 days, what are my most common errors in the Application Error Log?

Answering this through the management portal or terminal is an annoying manual process - we should just be able to use SQL. Fortunately, there are a few class queries to help with this in the SYS.ApplicationError class in the %SYS namespace. You can answer the question for a single date with something like:

select"Error message",count(*)
from SYS.

If you are investigating complex structured Globals this can become
a rather boring typing exercise. Different from Global Explorer in
System Management Portal Global-Inspector allows a kind of drill-down
to dig deeper and deeper by subscript levels.
You also have the option to see the stored content or to show only
the subscript structures.
Globals storing SQL Tables are probably not so thrilling, but in SYSTEM
space you find real trees with completely different branches and twigs.

Global-Inspector can run in browser or from terminal command line.

Imagine you’re walking down the street on a nice summer’s day, and someone walks up to you and says “Hey, you work at InterSystems, right? I’ve been hearing more and more about InterSystems IRIS lately. I know IRIS has its own programing language called ObjectBook? or InstaScript? OK, I admit it, I know it’s called ObjectScript! I know IRIS also supports Python. I’m a Python developer, so that sounds great to me. But I’m also interested in ObjectScript. For example, Python and other languages support collections. Does ObjectScript support collections?”

You’d answer “Of course!”

And then your new friend might get excited and start firing off more questions:

• How many kinds of collections does ObjectScript support?
• Can ObjectScript use Python collections?
• Can Python use ObjectScript collections?
• Which collection is best?

How would you answer? Well, you don’t have to worry about answering. All you’d have to do is send your new friend the URL of this long page.

The new version of InterSystems Testing Manager which I released last week brings @Timothy Leavitt's cool 
Test Coverage Tool to VS Code, and is my entry for the 2025 Developer Tools contest.

Here's a teaser screenshot showing how the unit tests of the IPM project don't yet cover a feature that apparently allows an IPM repository to override its sort order.

Now that we have a good understanding of Python and its features, let's explore how we can leverage Python within IRIS.

• Introduction to Python in IRIS
• Language Tag
  • How to use it?
  • Pros
  • Cons
  • Conclusion
• Importing Python Modules (pypi modules)
  • How to use it
  • Pros
  • Cons
  • Conclusion
• Importing Python Modules (custom modules)
  • How to use it
  • Pros
  • Cons
  • Conclusion

Sending emails is a common requirement in integration scenarios — whether for client reminders, automatic reports, or transaction confirmations. Static messages quickly become hard to maintain and personalize. This is where the templated_email module comes in, combining InterSystems IRIS Interoperability with the power of Jinja2 templates.

Why Jinja2 for Emails

Jinja2 is a popular templating engine from the Python ecosystem that enables fully dynamic content generation.

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with licensing in an HA mirroring environment. We have mirror setup with 2 DB servers (Primary and Backup), and a separate Arbiter using ISCAgent. We currently don't have a license server setup so users using our web app get interruptions and have to log in again if failover occurs. 

We have also see some spurious licensing issues when failover occurs and users are logging back in. So we were wondering if using a separate License server (possibly hosted on the Arbiter machine) would help alleviate these licensing issues?

We’re building out a data lake in IRIS 2025.1 that aggregates data across multiple business systems and departments. I’m trying to establish best practices for schema design and separation.

Right now, I’m thinking of using a separate schema for each distinct system of record feeding into the data lake - for example, one schema per upstream source system, rather than splitting based on function (e.g. staging, raw, curated). The idea is that this would make it easier to manage source ownership, auditing, and pipeline logic, especially when multiple domains are contributing data.

#InterSystems Demo Games entry

⏯️  IRIS As Healthcare Data Infrastructure

Data, as a new type of production resource, has received increasing attention. The current economic development situation has raised many new demands for how to create usable value from data at scale. In reality, siloed systems, inconsistent data semantics, and difficulties in data deployment have greatly hindered the development of the data economy. InterSystems IRIS, as an integrated data platform, provides many capabilities to help enterprises and healthcare institutions open up data and leverage data value. In this demonstration, we will describe what challenges the data economy poses for data production, and how IRIS addresses these issues using its rich and powerful features.

Presenters:
🗣 @Nicky Zhu, Senior Sales Engineer, InterSystems
🗣 @Qiao Peng, Regional Sales Engineer Manager, InterSystems