#Source Control

Welcome to the next chapter of my CI/CD series, where we discuss possible approaches toward software development with InterSystems technologies and GitLab.

Today I want to share a few approaches that will decrease your compilation time (especially if you're doing incremental/diff compilation rather than a full build).

Compiler flags and qualifiers

Code load and compilation are affected by a variety of flags and qualifiers. If you write deployment scripts for InterSystems platforms, I highly recommend reading them at least once through.

We are a group of interface analysts in a healthcare setting, running IRIS for Health 2024, having upgraded over time from an old ENSEMBLE environment.  We have been working on a wish list of development goals, but are having trouble finding the correct, best practice method/path for getting to what we envision.

Current state:  We run IRIS for Health on a Redhat 8 virtual machine.  We run Interoperability productions (IE.cls) out of 6 namespaces.  We have a dev/test box and a production box.

Table of Contents

1. Purpose of the article
2. What containers are and why they make sense with IRIS
    2.1 Containers and images in a nutshell
    2.2 Why containers are useful for developers
    2.3 Why IRIS works well with Docker
3. Prerequisites
4. Installing the InterSystems IRIS image
    4.1 Using Docker Hub
    4.2 Pulling the image
5. Running the InterSystems IRIS image
    5.1 Starting an IRIS container
    5.2 Checking container status
    5.3 Executing code in the container terminal
    5.4 Accessing the IRIS Management Portal
    5.5 Connecting the container to VS Code
    5.6 Stopping or removing the container
    5.7 Setting a specific password with a bind mount
    5.8 Using durable %SYS volumes
     5.8.1 What gets stored with durable %SYS
     5.8.2 How to enable durable %SYS
6. Using Docker Compose
    6.1 Docker Compose example
    6.2 Running Docker Compose
7. Using a Dockerfile to run custom source code
    7.1 Dockerfile example
    7.2 Docker Compose example
    7.3 Understanding layers, image tagging and build vs. run time
    7.4 Source code and init script
    7.5 Building the image with Dockerfile
    7.6 Running instructions in the containerized IRIS terminal
8. Conclusion and what’s next

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Version Control
3. Exporting Classes
4. Exporting BI Analytics classes
5. Exporting globals

Introduction.

In this article, we'll cover a quick start to Git development with the InterSystems Developer Community and version control practices when working with IRIS InterSystems. We'll cover scenarios where we need to export Interoperability classes, globals, and analytics elements such as cubes and dashboards. These scenarios encompass key version control practices with IRIS.

To get started, you'll need:

1. Register and log in to GitHub
2. Be a member of the intersystems-community organization on Git

Getting started with IRIS InterSystems is very simple!

Hi everyone,
I'm getting prepared to take the following certification exam: "InterSystems IRIS Development Professional".

Can you give some advice on how to prepare (aside from the official course page: https://www.intersystems.com/certifications/intersystems-iris-development-professional/)?
Do you have examples of quiz questions that simulate the real exam or any material that helped you getting prepared?

Thanks you in advance,

Arber

The Interoperability user interface now includes modernized user experiences for the DTL Editor and Production Configuration applications that are available for opt-in in all interoperability products. You can switch between the modernized and standard views. All other Interoperability screens remain in the Standard user interface. Please note that changes are limited to these two applications and we identify below the functionality that is currently available. 

To try out the new screens prior to upgrading, you can download the 2025.

In Studio, is it possible to call a dialog with a single input text field inside a custom Studio.Extension.Base.CheckIn method?

Update: The AI Bot just answered, not sure why it was at loss before I posted.

There is a way to remove the web source control in the web page of BPL?

i already disabled a configuration in the production and works fine:

But in the BPL page, it doesn't worked. There is a way to disable this configuration at portal?

Hi

I'm trying to assess whether git-source-control will work for our development environment.  I've watched some videos and read the documentation and read some posts and I'm still unsure whether it works with multiple developers using a shared remote development environment (i.e. namespace).

Join us on Thursday to see the new features of Deltanji source control, version 8.1.

We'll be demoing our new Git Location Driver along with other functionality and usability improvements.

The Git Location Driver enables Deltanji to integrate directly with Git repositories, makes Deltanji the perfect source control companion to those who use Git-based repos by providing tighter integration with InterSystems IRIS.

Date: Thursday, July 17th 
Time: 11 - 12pm EDT | 4 - 5pm BST | 5 - 6pm CET
Location: Online (register for details) 

Can't make it? Email info@georgejames.

Is it possible to audit code changes in a namespace?

Ideally what we'd like to be able to do is check which classes were compiled (or deleted) in a time period, eg in last 3 months, and which user made those changes. Even better would be an audit of what those changes were, but that's less important (for us, as we can probably find that information in other ways).

We have a service where 3 groups, each with multiple users, potentially have access to make changes to the live service. With the best will in the world, each group doesn't always tell every other group about changes made.

George James Software is excited to share a new release of Deltanji source control, version 8.1. This new release introduces a Git Location Driver along with several other functionality and usability improvements. 

Highlights of this release include: 

• Git Location Driver, which enables Deltanji to integrate directly with Git repositories.
• Additional signing methods for Task Server II.
• DATA Component Driver proxy classes.
• Add or remove from Work Lists incrementally. 
• %ALL system definitions.
• New Installation defaults.

The Application Services team is pleased to announce the release of git-source-control version 2.4.0, introducing several new features to the open-source project.

For those unfamiliar, git-source-control is an embedded (or "server-side") source control tool for InterSystems products, installed through the InterSystems Package Manager.

Here are the key additions to the 2.4.0 release:

1. Basic Mode

Basic mode presents an overall great simplification to the git workflow, suitable for users with less knowledge of git as a source control tool.

We have classes in a Production environment that are causing us some issues - example attached.

When we export them from the production environment the XML contains a snippet like the following:

<UDLText name="T">
<Content><![CDATA[
//Property any As list Of %XML.String(XMLNAME = "any", XMLPROJECTION = "ANY") [ SqlFieldName = _any ];

]]></Content>
</UDLText>

When imported and compiled into an Ensemble instance this class works as expected.

When viewed/edited in a development environment we run into issues - the presentation is similar with both Studio and VS Code.

Greetings,

Our team is transitioning to Git in the foreseeable future, and I'm trying to figure out how to design the best development workflow. Being new to IRIS, I am having trouble wraping my head around a few concepts.

I'd like to ask you for recommendations on how to properly use repository dependencies when using VSCode and Client-side editing. Suppose I have projects A, B and C, with A being independent, B depending on A, and C depending on A and B. I am currently working with the main project C, and I want to be able to contribute to all the other projects in a single VSCode window (instead of opening three instances). How do you solve this problem? Git submodules? ZPM? Something else?

Hi, Community!

How can you improve your team's work on interface components? See how source control can help:

Using Server-Side Source Control in Health Connect Cloud

Hi, Community!

Looking for a safe space to create interface components outside your live environment? See how interface branches can help:

Using Interface Branches in Health Connect Cloud

The VS Code extension development team is looking for beta testers to provide feedback on a proposed overhaul of the client-side editing workflow. The full list of changes can be found in the GitHub pull request description. Here are the highlights:

• Support the use of client-side editing in any non-isfs workspace folder, not just folders in your local file system. For example, with VS Code Remote Development.
• Create an index of all Classes, MAC and INT routines, and Include files inside non-isfs workspace folders.

The compile step in VS Code when using the InterSystems VS Code extensions appears to modify line endings in our class files when newly pulled from remote repo.

What steps can we take to stop this happening? / What settings can we modify?

We are doing local development with client side source control using git (BitBucket Cloud repository). We were previously using GitLab (locally hosted) and didn't have this issue. Developers are all on Windows machines, as are all the Ensemble instances. We believe we have autocrlf = true in all our local git configurations.

Hi Community,

🏥Are you using HealthShare® Health Connect Cloud™ to integrate your data?

Learn more aboutdeployments, integrations, and source control tools so you can optimize your use of this cloud-based managed service.

When you deploy code from a repo, class (file) deletion might not be reflected by your CICD system.
Here's a simple one-liner to automatically delete all classes in a specified package that have not been imported. It can be easily adjusted for a variety of adjunct tasks:

set packages = "USER.*,MyCustomPackage.*"
set dir = "C:\InterSystems\src\"
set sc = $SYSTEM.OBJ.LoadDir(dir,"ck", .err, 1, .loaded)
set sc = $SYSTEM.OBJ.Delete(packages _ ",'" _ $LTS($LI($LFS(loaded_",",".cls,"), 1, *-1), ",'"), "/generated=0", .err2)

The first command compiles classes and also returns a list of loaded classes. The second command deletes all classes from specified packages, except for the classes loaded just before that. Any generated classes are also skipped since they won't be in the loaded list.

It's been a while since I've posted about Embedded Git on the Developer Community, and I'd like to provide an update on the massive amount of work we've done this year and where we're going next.

Context

If you're building solutions on IRIS and want to use Git, that's great! Just use VSCode with a local git repo and push your changes out to the server - it's that easy.

Hello everyone! This is my first post into the developer community and one that I hope is fairly simple to answer. In our environment we currently have 3 different Test environments for testing before migrating code to our Prod environment. Currently we are working on establishing a source control method using Git in house which has been a bit of a struggle. We have also had developers that had used different test and migration methods in the past which has caused some issues with keeping the different test environment in sync.

Hey Community,

Enjoy the new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ Selecting The Right Source Control Strategy for Your Team @ Global Summit 2024

Hello everyone, 

My team is currently developing guidance and best practices for the generation, storage, and deployment of TUNE TABLE statistics across development and production environments. With that in mind, we want to get an idea of what methods teams in the field have developed for handling this data. In particular, we’d like to know the following: 

1. How often do you use TUNE TABLE in your development vs. production environments? 
2. Do you utilize the $SYSTEM.SQL.Stats.Table package to generate and export TUNE TABLE statistics as files? If so: 
   1. Do you store these in source control?

Hey everyone, I am implementing version control with git-source-control on our codebase and I ran into a pretty strange issue. I believe I have the set up (mostly) correct as the behavior with .cls files is exactly as expected. However, I noticed that git is not keeping track of any changes to CSP files.

Specifically, if a new CSP file is created and saved, I will get the following output:

exporting new version of /csp/testdb/wrc.csp to C:\InterSystems\IRIS\mgr\repo\TESTDB\csp\testdb\wrc.csp

Added /csp/testdb/wrc.csp to source control.

C:\InterSystems\IRIS\mgr\repo\TESTDB\csp\testdb\wrc.

Hi there,

I'm attempting to use the newest version of git-web-ui now that we've also updated to 2024.1.2. I'm having an issue though where I'm getting a 404 when launching the web gui from the Source Control menu in a production. If I look in the nginx logs I see the following:
2024/11/19 22:00:47 [error] 16#0: *237 open() "/opt/nginx/html/isc/studio/usertemplates/gitsourcecontrol/webuidriver.csp/CUSTRUSH/CUSTRUSHPKG.FoundationProduction.CLS" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 172.18.0.1, server: localhost, request: "GET /isc/studio/usertemplates/gitsourcecontrol/webuidriver.

Production Decomposition

Production Decomposition is a new configuration option added to the CCR Client Tools that instead of source controlling the Production class as a single item, considers it a composition of configuration items. This allows different users to edit these distinct items within a Production at the same time Historically, this has been a pain point with source controlling Productions as any work involving the Production class required a check out that prevented other users from making edits.