#ObjectScript

1. A Motivating Example

Embedded Python has been around for a while. You probably followed the tutorials and learned about it. However, if you've tried to combine Python and ObjectScript in real development work, you probably ran into situations where you get an error message like this:

USER>Do##class

It's a long string for limited information. All we know from this message is that a Python error occurred where (a) the error type is ZeroDivisionError; and (b)

Hey everyone,

I'm diving deeper into Caché ObjectScript and would love to open a discussion around the most useful tips, tricks, and best practices you’ve learned or discovered while working with it.

Whether you're an experienced developer or just getting started, ObjectScript has its own set of quirks and powerful features—some well-documented, others hidden gems. I’m looking to compile a helpful set of ideas from the community.

If you're migrating from Oracle to InterSystems IRIS—like many of my customers—you may run into Oracle-specific SQL patterns that need translation.

Take this example:

SELECT (TO_DATE('2023-05-12','YYYY-MM-DD') - LEVEL + 1) AS gap_date
FROM dual
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= (TO_DATE('2023-05-12','YYYY-MM-DD') - TO_DATE('2023-05-02','YYYY-MM-DD') + 1);

In Oracle:

• LEVEL is a pseudo-column used in hierarchical queries (CONNECT BY). It starts at 1 and increments by 1.
• CONNECT BY LEVEL <= (...)

I am having a hard time trying to figure out the following...

Within a DTC, I was able to take the a EnsLib.HL7.Message source and using

set$Systemset

to take the HL7 message encode it and add it to the Data Class as a string to be sent to an Operation to be sent out as a SOAP Request. 

However to make it more universal I tried doing this within a copy of EnsLib.HL7.SOAPOperation

Method SendMessage(pMsgOut 

I keep getting the following message from the SOAP response 

During the realization of some required functionality, I discovered that I need to use Deflate compression, and found, that IRIS does not offer any options, $system.Util.Compress, works one way open (GZIP/COMPRESS) totally different, even for the same algorithms, I see that what I would expect as a result for Deflate somewhere there, but Compress returns something more. Is there any way to get a correct result using just ObjectScript without a need to use external tools? Was it really so difficult to have Deflate implemented in the first place?

I have a Task that I am trying to write the output to a file. How do I check for if the Output File has been included in the Task Schedule, so I can direct my output of my class to that output file?

Thanks

Scott

Hello,

I have a class with a "Unique" index (pxfactidIndex) on a %Numeric property (pxfactid) (partially-edit code snippet below):

PropertyAs%Library.Numeric

I see the following odd behavior when counting how many records have that property set to null:

• The first query (17) returns the number of records in the table. The 2nd query (18) returns what I expect: all records have non-null values for that "pxfactid" property. However, when I run the 3rd query (19) which counts all records with non-null values in that field, I get a much smaller, unexpected, number.

Hi Community,
i'm trying to figure out how to pass a string to a routine from Powershell:
 

####

ROUTINE ImplUtil

Say(pSomething = "hello, i'm the ROUTINE"w

what's the right way to pass in text?

Are there any direct command to find the length of subscript of  global variable? Is it possible to code in objectscript to find the maximum length of subscript  in a global variable.

I am struggling on how to pull out individual fields from a JSON. In a previous post someone had mentioned that I could...

  If$ZCONVERT

for the following JSON response...

{
    "count"1-01

"titles""value"

Where I would like to pull value.en_US value, "Professor". 

'When I tried set pResponse.COMTitle = responseData.items.%Get(0).titles.%Get(0).value.%Get(0).en_US, I am not getting any data back.

When set pResponse.

I am testing vectorsearch, while doing so I am trying to paginate my resultset for a "next page" function to give me the first, second, third 15 entries within a table. 

For this I have two embedding classes. One with a HNSW Index (vectornomicembedtextlatest), and one without (vectornomicembedtexttest).

Calling SELECT ID,PRIMKEY FROM SQLUser.vectornomicembedtexttest LIMIT 5 OFFSET 1 works fine with the first entry having the rowID of 486448. (I deleted old entries in the beginning and reused the table)

SELECT ID,PRIMKEY FROM SQLUser.

Hello Community,

When I run the following code with x undefined in terminal, it throws a syntax error and returns control to the program stack. After issuing a GO command, execution continues, and setting the global variable ^zz1.

code 1:

test.mac
if$Data

 if I assign the result of $D(@x@(a,b,c)) to a local variable like using , and then use , the code fails(global is not set) working as expected.

Code 2

test1.mac

So, Why The body of the if statement is not tied to the success and it sets the global in the code 1.

Thanks!

I'm creating a Business Process that:

1. Transforms one object into another using DTL
2. Sends this object to an operation
3. Transform the object obtained in first point into another one using DTL
4. Sends the second object to an operation

The Business Process is created with BPL, and objects are stored in BP context. When I execute this Process, in the 3rd point the object obtained in first transformation doesn't exist. It's empty.

Hello Community,

Is it possible to retrieve/find all the names of subroutines, procedures, or functions from a deployed routine?. in the routine below, how can I extract names like x2 and execsql? I’ve just tried using openId on %RoutineMgr  but it didn’t help.

xdeploy.mac
xdeploy
 quit; test1

Thanks

Hello Community,

I executed the below query in the %ZLANGC00.mac routine. It returns results when using dynamic SQL, but not with embedded SQL(returns 0). 

 &SQL(SELECTcountTable

Thanks!

I have a table in the development and want to erase data from certain columns. There is info in the docs but not for human
This piece of code does not work

ALTER TABLE table DROP COLUMN column %DELDATA

According to documentation, quotation: "$THIS contains the current class context.
The class context for an instance method is the current object reference (OREF).
The class context for a class method is the current classname as a string value."
 
As my example below shows, either the documentation or the implementation (or both) is wrong, I always call a class method (Value) and expected the class name as the return value but got either the class name or an OREF. Moreover, if I repeat the call, I get another values. But why?

I am running into an issue where a JSON response is missing keys...

{
    "count"0

Within the JSON response I am only looking for two fields portalUrl and portalId. I have tried using $LENGTH and %IsDefined to check if they are valued but neither work. 

Can anyone tell me how I can check to see if a key exists within a JSON response?

Hello Community,

When retrieving strings from the DAO, if the string exceeds the capacity of an ObjectScript string variable, it returns <MAXSTRING>. To prevent this, use dao.%Get(key, default, "stream") to retrieve the value as a stream (%Stream.DynamicBinary). However, Why can't we use other stream objects such as %Stream.TmpCharacter instead of %Stream.DynamicBinary/%Stream.DynamicCharacter (I understand It is not possible to create a direct object instance for %Stream.Dynamic* classes) .

I am trying to replicate a REST call that I am able to make via a Postman call within a EnsLib.REST.GenericOperation.

It's been a while since I have messed around with trying to make external REST calls. When I execute my REST call, tSC is coming back with an error and I am trying to pinpoint why. I tried turning on ISCLOG = 5 but when calling the REST Operation from the Testing tool it is not logging anything to the ISC log.

How do we see the RAW request being sent out to verify that my request is formatted properly?

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 "?".

In order to avoid the NBSP issue, the if condition is replaced with a space in order to prevent the error.

Unicode characters only Remove:

Class Test.Utility.

Hello Community,

I have a queue that I need to traverse and perform operations on. To distribute the workload across multiple processes, I used a Work Queue Manager do process and I'm not expecting any status from it So, I skipped Sync / WaitForComplete in my implementation

Hi devs!

Suppose I have an instance of a persistent class:

Set##class%OpenId

Class is an ancestor of %JSON.Adapter.

How can I convert it to dynamic object with the properties that person.%JSONExport() provides?

{

Couldn't find a right method. 

set dynObj = ##class(%ZEN.Auxiliary.altJSONProvider).%ObjectToAET(person) works, but adds id and classname, which I don't want to be added:

zw dynObj
dynObj={"_class":"dc.Sample.Person","_id":1,"Name":"Elon Mask","Title":"Associate Accountant","Company":"InterSystems","Phone":"799-933-5569","DOB":31390}  ;

Thoughts?

The Good Old Days

The %Library.DynamicObject class has been in IRIS since before it became IRIS. If you have been using it since the Cache days, you may want to brush up on some of its changes.

In Cache 2018, the %Get method only had one argument. It was the key to retrieving from the JSON, meaning that if your JSON object called myObj, it would look like the following:

Hello IRIS community,  

InterSystems Certification is developing a certification exam for InterSystems IRIS Developer professionals, and if you match the exam candidate description given below, we would like you to beta test the exam. 

I have an IRIS persistent class with a %Stream property whose value is a JSON object. I'd like to use a SQL trigger to pull some value out of the JSON and persist it in another property, for easy querying and indexing. See below for a minimal example:

ClassExtends%PersistentAsinsertintoContents

However, the SQL insert fails in the trigger with a JSON parsing message like this:

<THROW>InsertRow+9^PAB.DebugStream.1 *%Exception.SQL -415 -415 InsertRow+9^PAB.DebugStream.1 Error occurring during INSERT in table 'PAB.DebugStream':  $ZE=<THROW>%FromJSON+22^%Library.DynamicAbstractObject.1 *%Exception.General Parsing error 3 Line 1 Offset 1

I think I found my solution but I'm trying to understand better why it works. Forgive me as my descriptions here may be scattered but I'm trying to piece the puzzle together.

Scenario: I've found there are times when I make a request using a %Net.HttpRequest object and as I'm debugging and stepping through via the debugger in VSCode, if I try to access an object in the 'variables' menu, sometimes when I click that little expand button it will just spin and never load what's in the object to the viewer.

I was wondering if someone could help me. In the past I have been able to call external Stored Procedures through a SQL Outbound Connection and have them return me the EnsLib.SQL.Snapshot to use within a BPL to extract data.

But this time instead of using a SQL Outbound BO to make the Stored Procedure call, I decided to create a Linked Stored Procedure through the %JDBC_Server to point to the Stored Procedure out on MS SQL.

However, I am struggling to get the code just right to return the Column value from the Linked Stored Procedure.

 set##class

After upgrading from 2024 to 2025 Im not able to compile any class.

I was using ZPM and git-source-control.

Now Im getting 

Compilation started on 04190.209

I disabled SourceControl in Management portal and nothing happen.

I added extra OBX segments and I need to renumber OBX 4 so they are sequential.