You probably know this situation:
Some time ago, you found a very special $ZU function for a very specific type of problem. Some kind of mystical formula. It became popular and was used by many developers throughout your code and across all your installations.

Several versions and updates later, you are informed by ISC that your mystical $ZU is deprecated and no longer supported. You are advised to replace it with a new $something().

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Hi Developers!

Consider I have a persistent class derived from %Persistent and I want it to be derived from %JSON.Adaptor to enjoy all the JSON features.

Can I do it programmatically?

So, it'd be wonderful to have a method in some util class that makes it happen? Something like:

Do ClassUtil.AddAncestor("MyPackage.MyPersistentClass","%JSON.Adaptor")

Any ideas?

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When working with InterSystems Interoperability (Iris / Health Connect / Ensemble), configuration data is often spread across many production items: services, processes, operations, adapters, and their settings.

A common operational or security need is to answer questions like:

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Here is what is currently used.

..CurrentDateTime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")

The format is not the issue.

I need to make it our current time as it is five hours ahead.

How can I access the header property of either of these.

Or, if I can't do that, subtract five hours or the equivalent time in seconds.

example, if I receive 20201224161922, how can I make it 20201224111922?

Thanks,

Jonathan

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Embeddedpy-bridge: A Toolkit for Embedded Python

Overview

Embedded Python is a game-changer for InterSystems IRIS, offering access to the vast Python ecosystem directly within the database. However, bridging the gap between ObjectScript and Python can sometimes feel like translating between two different worlds.

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Sometimes it is more convenient, more efficient, and more secure, to limit FHIR Searches per pre-defined "Lists" of Resources.

Since v2025.1 we support several List-related features in our FHIR Server.

I will highlight these here, and provide some samples.

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Hi developers!

There is a very neat variable in IPM ${ipmdir} that lets packages be installed on a particular IRIS server and ensures that the data and resources they bring don't mess around as ${ipmdir} variable during the installation transforms into:

iris installation dir/ipm/package_name/version/whatever_you_install_here

It is very convenient, e.g., to bring some data and resource files that can be useful during the installation setup, e.g., via FILECOPY. Indeed, suppose you bring some csv_file, e.g. titanic.csv via FILECOPY as:

<FileCopy Name="data/titanic.csv" Target="${ipmdir}data/titanic.csv"/>

or even the whole folder of data in the source code repo into the package:

<FileCopy Name="data/" Target="${ipmdir}data/"/>

And in the case of Iris in Docker it resides in:

/usr/irissys/ipm/package_name/1.0.0/data/titanic.csv

This is all great, but is there any way for the installed code to determine the location of the data files? It'd be neat to let the installed app know somehow where is the data that came with it? Could it be the method in the IPM client that will resolve ${ipmdir} for the app?

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Hi developers!
Happy holidays!

In ObjectScript there is neat option to log errors - call Log() method of an exception intance, e.g.:

ClassMethod MyMethod() {

Try {

w 1/0

}

Catch e {

do e.Log() // logging error in the app log

write "the error happened: "_e.DisplayString()

}

}

Is there anything like that for Embedded Python? e.g:

ClassMethod MyMethod() [Language = python] {

 try:

   print(1/0)

 except ZeroDivisionError as e:

   // how can I log e into IRIS App Error Log here?

   print("Caught exception: " + str(e))

}

Any ideas?

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Hey Developers,

Enjoy the new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube

Inside Vector Search - Technical Innovations In InterSystems IRIS @ READY 2025

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ofEfLqi-kU8
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Hi noble developers!

Have a question/discussion. Sometimes, while developing, we'd need to connect VSCode directly to a remote server (e.g., stage one) for debugging purposes. And after change back to local one. And then to remote again.

How do you perform this switching in VSCode in a convenient way?

I have several settings.json files (settings_local, settings_remote) which I put to a main settings.json when I need to make VSCode to connect to switch the connection:

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InterSystems IRIS embedded vector search capabilities lets us search unstructured and semi-structured data. Data is converted to vectors (also called ‘embeddings’) and then stored and indexed in InterSystems IRIS for semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), text analysis, recommendation engines, and other use cases.

This is a simple demo of IRIS being used as a vector database and similarity search on IRIS.

Prerequisites:

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You send an HTTP request and get back an HTTP error but with an HTML error page which you didn't expect... what's happening?... 🤔

Specifically for example, perhaps you tried to READ a FHIR Resource (e.g. /Patient/123) and you get back a 404 error page, even though with other Patient IDs, you get back the Resource payload, so "the page" definitely does exist... why should you be getting a 404 error page? 🙄

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Time for another round of code golf!

Develop a function that performs a two-step encryption process on a given string:

  • First Step: Reverse Cipher

    • Reverse the entire input string.
    • Relocate the last character of the original string (now the first character of the reversed string) to the end.
  • Second Step: Alphabetic Index Binary Encoding

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Hello!!!

Data migration often sounds like a simple "move data from A to B task" until you actually do it. In reality, it is a complex process that blends planning, validation, testing, and technical precision.

Over several projects where I handled data migration into a HIS which runs on IRIS (TrakCare), I realized that success comes from a mix of discipline and automation.

Here are a few points which I want to highlight.

1. Start with a Defined Data Format.

Before you even open your first file, make sure everyone, especially data providers, clearly understands the exact data format you expect. Defining templates early avoids unnecessary bank-and-forth and rework later.

While Excel or CSV formats are common, I personally feel using a tab-delimited text file (.txt) for data upload is best. It's lightweight, consistent, and avoids issues with commas inside text fields.

PatID   DOB Gender  AdmDate
10001   2000-01-02  M   2025-10-01
10002   1998-01-05  F   2025-10-05
10005   1980-08-23  M   2025-10-15

Make sure that the date formats given in the file is correct and constant throughout the file because all these files are usually converted from an Excel file and an Basic excel user might make mistakes while giving you the date formats wrong. Wrong date formats can irritate you while converting into horolog.

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The Power of Indexing in Database Tables

When working with databases, most developers understand the concept of an index and why it's used: to speed up data retrieval. But the real impact of indexing often becomes clear only when you compare scenarios with and without it.

Do you Know what Happens Without an Index?
Imagine a table with three columns: Name, Age, and MobileNumber.

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Looking at my database I see I have a very big ^rINDEXSQL global? Why is that? 😬

In the Management Portal SQL page, under "SQL Statements" I see a 'Clean stale' button - what does this do? 🤔

In the list of Statements some have a 'Location' value and some don't? How is that? 🤨

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Hey Developers,

Enjoy the new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube

First Customers Using Vector Search - Real World Experiences and Lessons Learned @ READY 2025

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HZrxAxrQges
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Project Overview / Introduction

Developing and testing REST APIs in InterSystems IRIS often requires a significant amount of boilerplate code. While ObjectScript provides powerful tools for building APIs, writing consistent and repeatable tests can be time‑consuming. This is where IrisOASTestGen comes in.

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In this article, we will discuss all the debugging tools included in the Microsoft Visual Studio Code IDE.

What will be covered:

  • Breakpoints
  • Watch window
  • Call Stack

Let's start by learning about debugging requirements!

Prerequisites

There are two plugins (extensions) for debugging ObjectScript:

The first is part of the InterSystems ObjectScript Extension Pack. The second is Serenji, a standalone plugin that provides an editor, file manager, and debugging functionality. Both plugins can be installed from the plugin store. To activate key functionality, Serenji requires a license. For this article, we'll use the InterSystems ObjectScript Extension Pack to reduce the learning curve. After you've mastered the basics, you can consider purchasing a paid license for Serenji.

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Hey Community!

We're happy to share a new video from our InterSystems Developers YouTube:

Using InterSystems Data Studio with Supply Chain Module as a Data Gateway @ Ready 2025

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fsj90EItuBI
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