Introduction

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a free source code editor made by Microsoft for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It provides built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js. You can add extensions to provide support for numerous other languages including ObjectScript.

The InterSystems extensions enable you to use VS Code to connect to an InterSystems IRIS server and develop code in ObjectScript. The Visual Studio Code Documentation is an excellent resource on VS Code, so it is a good idea to be familiar with it.

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Article
· Mar 4, 2022 4m read
How to become a time lord - Time travel

Time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide, you have to throw yourself into it. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get double the charges, and end up kissing complete strangers.

The Doctor

We are now going to travel through time, that is, we are going to see future and past dates and how to calculate them in different formats. The TARDIS doesn't wait, take the controls and hold on tight.

Travel in TARDIS

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Hi Community,

In this article, we will explore the concepts of Dynamic SQL and Embedded SQL within the context of InterSystems IRIS, provide practical examples, and examine their differences to help you understand how to leverage them in your applications.

InterSystems SQL provides a full set of standard relational features, including the ability to define table schema, execute queries, and define and execute stored procedures. You can execute InterSystems SQL interactively from the Management Portal or programmatically using a SQL shell interface. Embedded SQL enables you to embed SQL statements in your ObjectScript code, while Dynamic SQL enables you to execute dynamic SQL statements from ObjectScript at runtime. While static SQL queries offer predictable performance, dynamic and embedded SQL offer flexibility and integration, respectively.

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Hi developers!

Just want to share an old but always relevant best practice on namespaces changing @Dmitry Maslennikov shared with me (again).

Consider method:

classmethod DoSomethingInSYS() as %Status

{

set sc=$$$OK

set ns=$namespace

zn "%SYS"

// try-catch in case there will be an error

try {

// do something, e.g. config change

}

catch {}

 zn ns    ; returning back to the namespace we came in the routine

return sc

}

And with new $namespace the method could be rewritten as:

classmethod DoSomethingInSYS() as %Status

{

set sc=$$$OK

new $namespace

set $namespace="%SYS"

// do something

return sc

}

So! The difference is that we don't need to change the namespace manually as it will be back automatically once we return the method.

and we don't need try-catch (at least for this purpose) too.

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Article
· May 7, 2020 4m read
Unit Testing with ZPM

Hi Developers!

I want to share with you the approach you can use working with Unit Testing which I personally find very convenient and robust.

Will not talk much here about Unit Testing, we have documentation, enough good articles on the topic not only on the Internet but here on Developers Community too, e.g. this one.

How can you manage the Unit Testing of your ZPM module?

This is pretty handy with ZPM. It has a special command "test" which runs all the tests you mentioned in the module. You can execute it as shown below:

zpm:USER>module-name test

And this command runs all the tests you mentioned in module.xml.

Let's see how it works.

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*** archived ***

The question has come up several times and I saw mixed answers and no quick example

My personal preference is using CPIPE device as you get back exactly the output you will get at the command line interface of your OS .
The tricky thing is to stop reading in time.
The example just displays what you normally see in your console.
it becomes useful if you look for things that you can't get from any $system.whatever()

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Article
· Mar 28, 2019 2m read
ObjectScript error handling snippets

ObjectScript has at least three ways of handling errors (status codes, exceptions, SQLCODE, etc.). Most of the system code uses statuses but exceptions are easier to handle for a number of reasons. Working with legacy code you spend some time translating between the different techniques. I use these snippets a lot for reference. Hopefully they're useful to others as well.

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Article
· Jul 19, 2022 4m read
Caution with Mixing OO and SQL

Mixing Object syntax with SQL is one of the nice features in Object Script. But in one case, it gave strange results, so I decided to isolate the case and describe it here.

Let's say you need to write a classmethod that updates a single property on disk. Usually, i would write that using SQL like this :

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Here are a few examples of conversions and operations you might need, along with links to documentation where you can learn more.

At the time I wrote this, Eastern Daylight Time was in effect for my Caché system.

How Caché keeps the time and date

Caché has a simple time format, with a longer range of recognized dates compared to some other technologies.

The current time is maintained in a special variable $HOROLOG ($H):

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Article
· Apr 26, 2024 3m read
Geo Vector Search #2

Technical surprises using VECTORs
>>> UPDATED

Building my tech. example provided me with a bunch of findings htt I want to share.
The first vectors I touched appeared with text analysis and more than 200 dimensions.
I have to confess that I feel well with Einstein's 4 dimensional world.
7 to 15 dimensions populating the String Theory are somewhat across the border.
But 200 and more is definitely far beyond my mathematical horizon.

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Article
· Apr 27, 2017 7m read
Level up your XDATA

XDATA is used for a whole host of ISC libraries to store things like Zen pages, BPL logic and DTL transformations.

XDATA is the equivalent of XML config files of the JAVA world and JSON config files of the JavaScript / NPM world.

Whilst Atelier looks to shift source code to the disk, XDATA will remain a key component to source control our projects config / meta data.

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$LIST string format and %DynamicArray and %DynamicObject classes

IRIS, and previously Cache, contain several different ways to create a sequence containing a mixture of data values. A data sequence that has been available for many years is the $LIST string. Another more recent data sequence is the %DynamicArray class, which along with the %DynamicObject class, is part of the IRIS support for JSON string representation. These two sequences involve very different tradeoffs.

$LIST String Format

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Importance and Collection of Exact Version Information ($zv / $zversion)
The explanation of:
- why collecting $zv is important (The WHY),
- what the components of $zv mean (The WHAT),
- and how to collect $zv (The HOW).
(The Ultimate $zv Guide to the ISC Galaxy in large, friendly letters)
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Cache tricks

Several years ago, long before Developer Community Portal was launched, I published a series of Caché tricks at one of Czech web sites. In this article, I’m posting translated version of one of them.

Capturing output of someone else’s methods or routines

Suppose you, or someone else created a useful method or routine, that was producing some computation that you’d like to benefit from, but the routine was writing output to process principal device.

You would like to use the data, but you need it not written to a device, but assigned to a variable. And, for any reason, you can’t modify the code. What can you do?

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Now the Classes/Rutines/DeepSee files will be automatically exported to the working directory after saving or compiling and files will be automatically deleted .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/B1pmqAQqd4M
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Installation

To install isc-dev , you just need to download and import the file isc-dev.xml from last release.
Some ways to import isc-dev .xml file:

  • Go to Management Portal -> System Explorer -> Classes -> Import and select the XML file.
  • Drag the file over Studio.
  • Terminal command:
NS>do $system.OBJ.Load("yourpath/isc-dev.xml","ck")
NS>zpm
zpm: NS>install isc-dev

How to enable this feature:

  • After importing the class in the target namespace, run the following method to set up the working directory:
NS>do ##class(dev.code).workdir("/path/to/your/working/directory/src/")
  • Go to Management Portal -> System Administration -> Configuration -> Additional Settings -> Source Control.
  • Select the target namespace and set the dev.FileManExtension class as the main one and save it.
  • Try to create a new class in the studio and save/compile it
  • Enjoy!
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Your may not realize it, but your InterSystems Login Account can be used to access a very wide array of InterSystems services to help you learn and use InterSystems IRIS and other InterSystems technologies more effectively. Continue reading to learn more about how to unlock new technical knowledge and tools using your InterSystems Login account. Also - after reading, please participate in the Poll at the bottom, so we can see how this article was useful to you!

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Hi guys!

Was coding today with InterSystems IRIS in a docker container and decided to share with you the commands you may find useful in everyday coding.

# docker-compose build

command to build a container. Remember, it is useful if you have dockerfile in the repo.

if the build is successful call the following to launch it:

# docker-compose up -d

Find IRIS management portal on:

localhost:port/csp/sys/%25CSP.Portal.Home.zen?$NAMESPACE=%25SYS

where the port is what you set in docker-compose.yml - 52775 in this case.

Run the following if you want to launch a terminal session inside IRIS container:

# docker-compose iris iris session iris

gfhj gj 


sdfdsfsdf





USER>

And run the following to shut down the container:

# docker-compose down

Troubleshooting

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Earlier this year I announced availability of a VS Code extension for coding in ObjectScript, Embedded Python or SQL using the notebook paradigm popularized by Jupyter. Today I published a maintenance release to correct a "getting started" problem.

Here's a video of the installation steps from the extension's README:

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With the advent of Embedded Python, a myriad of use cases are now possible from within IRIS directly using Python libraries for more complex operations. One such operation is the use of natural language processing tools such as textual similarity comparison.

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