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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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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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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Here are the technology bonuses for the InterSystems "Bringing Ideas to Reality" Contest 2025 that will give you extra points in the voting:

  • Developer Experience Idea implemented - 4
  • IRIS Vector Search usage -3
  • Embedded Python usage -3
  • InterSystems Interoperability - 3
  • InterSystems IRIS BI - 3
  • VSCode Plugin - 3
  • FHIR Tools - 3
  • Docker container usage -2
  • ZPM Package Deployment - 2
  • Online Demo -2
  • Find and report a bug - 2
  • Article on Developer Community - 2
  • The second article on Developer Community - 1
  • Video on YouTube - 3
  • YouTube Short - 1
  • First Time Contribution - 3

See the details below.<--break->

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Hi folks!

Sometimes, when designing a class method and feeding it with more and more useful features, very soon the number of parameters can reach 10 and even more.

It becomes pretty difficult for users of useful methods to remember the position of the important parameter, and it is very easy to misuse the position and transfer the wrong value to the wrong parameter.

Here is an example of such a method (I asked GPT to create a method with 20 params):

ClassMethod GenerateReportWith20Params(
    pTitle As %String = "",
    pAuthor As %String = "",
    pDate As %String = "",            // e.g. 2025-09-03
    pCompany As %String = "",
    pDepartment As %String = "",
    pVersion As %String = "1.0",
    pFormat As %String = "pdf",       // pdf|html|docx
    pIncludeCharts As %Boolean = 1,
    pIncludeSummary As %Boolean = 1,
    pIncludeAppendix As %Boolean = 0,
    pConfidentiality As %String = "Public",
    pLanguage As %String = "en",
    pReviewers As %String = "",       // CSV, e.g. "Alice,Bob"
    pApprover As %String = "",
    pLogoPath As %String = "",
    pWatermarkText As %String = "",
    pColorScheme As %String = "default",
    pPageSize As %String = "A4",
    pOrientation As %String = "Portrait",
    pOutputPath As %String = "report.pdf"
) As %Status
{

// implementation
}

Open Exchange app
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Hi folks!

It is very easy to import CSV data into IRIS. But what if we want to preserve the original IDs in CSV?

Recently I came across with the situation when I needed to import two csv's into IRIS which were linked by one column referencing to another csv's col: a typical Foreign Key and Primary Key situation, where csv1 contains this column as Primary Key, and csv2 as Foreign key with id's related to csv1.

The image is generated by ChatGPT so don't blame it - it tried its best to generate countries as primary keys with countries.csv-cities.csv relationship :)

Open Exchange app
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Here are the technology bonuses for the InterSystems Developer Tools Contest 2025 that will give you extra points in the voting:

  • IRIS Vector Search usage -3
  • Embedded Python usage -3
  • InterSystems Interoperability - 3
  • InterSystems IRIS BI - 3
  • VSCode Plugin - 3
  • FHIR Tools - 3
  • Docker container usage -2
  • ZPM Package Deployment - 2
  • Implement InterSystems Community Idea - 4
  • Find a bug in Embedded Python - 2
  • Article on Developer Community - 2
  • The second article on Developer Community - 1
  • Video on YouTube - 3
  • First Time Contribution - 3

See the details below.<--break->

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Hi noble devs!

Just building a simple frontend->JSON->IRIS backend story, and figured that IRIS while importing via %JSON.Adaptor wants JSON fields to match property names, meaning even should match the case. Like:

{ name: "John", 

surname: "Doe"}

will have issues while saving the dynamic object to a class Sample.Person with:

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Hi fellow developers!

Curious if you guys use CreatedAt and LastUpdated properties in your classes?

Created to stamp when the record was created and LastUpdated when it was last updated. Where it can be useful - almost everywhere )) I find it convenient in records sorting (e.g. by creation or last update), in sync (with other systems), and so on, for better analytics.

Do you use it all the time for all the classes?

If don't, why not? What do you use instead?

What property type do you use - %TimeStamp? %DateTime?

What is the best practice to have CreatedAt filled automatically during creation and LastUpdated on every successful save (guess it could be in %OnSave)?

Please share your experience /thoughts?

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Question
· Jun 5, 2025
$Name from a parameter

Hi IRIS experts!

I have a parameter in a class that stores a global name:

Parameter GlobalName = "^AGlobal";

then I'm trying to call it as:

set gn=$name(..#GlobalName)

to use it later as:

set @gn@("index")="value"

But! I'm having syntax at set gn=$name(..#GlobalName)

What am I doing wrong?

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Hi developers!

Observing the avalanche of AI-driven and vibe-coding developer tools that have been appearing lately almost every month with more and more exciting dev features, I was puzzled whether it is possible to leverage it with InterSystems IRIS. At least to build a frontend. And the answer - yes! At least with the approach I followed.

Here is my recipe to prompt the UI vs InterSystems IRIS Backend:

  1. Have the REST API on the IRIS side, which reflects some Open API (swagger) spec.
  2. Generate the UI with any vibe-coding tool (e.g., Lovable) and point the UI to the REST API endpoint.
  3. Profit!

Here is the result of my own exercise - a 100% prompted UI vs IRIS REST API that allows to list, create, update delete entries of a persistent class (Open Exchange, frontend source, video):

What is the recipe in detail?

Open Exchange app
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