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Guillaume Rongier · Feb 6, 2023

I'm not tottaly agree with you.

Imagine you are new to iris, you just wish to play with our SQL engine.

With your proposal, you have to know how to connect to a terminal and know the magic command (zzq, BTW i was not aware of this one) to run a query.

Then, you can't do that remotely or with out SSH.

To finish, with your example, you don't show us how to do it from a Shell.

Guillaume Rongier · Feb 6, 2023

In my point of view, this app is a game changer.

Let me explain why.

Imagine you have an DDL statement that you want to execute on a database.
Example:

File: misc/init.sql

CREATE TABLE test.formation (
    name varchar(50) NULL,
    room varchar(50) NULL
);

INSERT INTO test.formation
(name, room)
VALUES('formation1', 'salle1');

You can execute this statement in the irissqlcli app by using the following command:

irissqlcli iris://_SYSTEM@localhost:51776/USER -W < misc/init.sql

Before this app, you had to use the terminal to execute this command.

cat <<EOF | iris session iris

do \$SYSTEM.SQL.Schema.ImportDDL("/irisdev/app/misc/init.sql",.log)
if log'="" { write "Error: ",log }
h
EOF

Let's compare the two commands:

tool command comment
irissqlcli irissqlcli iris://_SYSTEM@localhost:51776/USER -W < misc/init.sql One line, easy to read, eeasy to maintaine
terminal cat <<EOF \| iris session iris <br> do \$SYSTEM.SQL.Schema.ImportDDL("/irisdev/app/misc/init.sql",.log) <br>if log'="" { write "Error: ",log } <br>h <br>EOF multiple line, arkward to read, hard to maintain, must understand the syntax of the terminal, had to be on the same machine

One last thing, if I want to extract the data from a table, I can use the following command:

irissqlcli iris://_SYSTEM@localhost:51776/USER -W -e "SELECT * FROM test.formation" --csv

This command will return the following result:

"name","room"
"formation1","salle1"

Try to do the same thing with the terminal ;).

cat <<EOF | iris session iris
do ##class(%SQL.Statement).%ExecDirect(,"SELECT * FROM test.formation").%DisplayFormatted("CSV",,,.filesUsed)
do ##class(%Stream.FileCharacter).%OpenId(filesUsed(1)).OutputToDevice()
h
EOF
Guillaume Rongier · Jan 23, 2023

Hi dear community,

If you lack inspiration for the contest, here are some ideas:

  • A tool to improve the load of DDL or SQL statements in IRIS.

    • Why, because for now, we have to run an iris terminal then run an objectscritp command to load the DDL or SQL statements.
    • I wish a way that we can have a tool that bring the ability to parse a DDL or SQL file from a shell.
      • Example : iris load -f /path/to/file.sql

  • A tool to automatically export objectscript classes to the local folder

    • I know we can do it with Timothy's tool, but I wish a simple hook that just export new classes or modified classes to the local folder. Not the whole source control system.
Guillaume Rongier · Jan 20, 2023 
Class codeGolf.Pyramid
{

ClassMethod BuildPython(f As %Integer) [ Language = python ]
{
for i in range(f):
    print(' ' * (f - i - 1) + '#' * (2 * i + 1))
}

/// Description: Build a pyramid of height f
ClassMethod Build(f As %Integer) As %Status
{
    Set sc = $$$OK
    For i = 1:1:f {
        set space = $tr($j("",f-i)," "," ")
        set hash = $tr($j("",2*i-1)," ","#")
        Write space_hash, !
    }
    Return sc
}

}
Guillaume Rongier · Jan 16, 2023

Hi Joe,

The 2 dots syntax is used to access the properties and methods of the current object.
You can also use $this to access the current object.

For example, if you have a class called "MyClass" and you have a property called "MyProperty" in that class, you can access the property value by using the following syntax:

User.MyClass Extends EnsLib.BusinessService
{
    Property MyProperty;

    Method MyMethod()
    {
        set ..MyProperty = 10;
        set $this.MyProperty = 10;
    }
}

In your case, you can use the following syntax to access the methods of the EnsLib.File.InboundAdapter class:

User.MyClass Extends EnsLib.BusinessService
{
    Parameter ADAPTER = "EnsLib.File.InboundAdapter";
    Property Adapter = "EnsLib.File.InboundAdapter";

    Method MyMethod()
    {
        do ..Adapter.AdapterMethod()
        do $this.Adapter.AdapterMethod()
    }
}

Hope this helps.

Guillaume Rongier · Jan 16, 2023

My guess is that you try to use some outdated nativeapi drivers.
https://github.com/intersystems/quickstarts-multimodel-python <- outdate more than 3 years old
I encourage you to use this git for drivers : https://github.com/intersystems-community/iris-driver-distribution

If you are looking for python expérience on IRIS have a look at those git :

BTW : a more complete DB-API and SQL Alchemy support is under development

Guillaume Rongier · Dec 20, 2022

Just to be clear, the remove of the private web server is just for IRIS and IRIS for Health. IRIS and IRIS for Health community edition still has the private web server.

Then, the question is, what is the cost of this decision for end-developers like most of here.

I would say not that much as you think. The main raison is that most of the developer use the community edition. And the community edition still has the private web server. Then if you have an preinstalled IRIS, you will keep the private server.

The main cost is for the new developer that don't have an preinstalled IRIS and that don't want to use the community edition. I agree that installing a web server is not that easy if you sick on windows. But it is not that hard if you are on Linux or Mac.

For windows developers, may be we can provide simple installer that install a web server and configure it for IRIS.

Now, if we take a step back on the ease of use. I think, this decision is a good one, because it's the first major step of breaking down the monolith. From this point, we can start to make the product more modular. And of course, there is a lot of work to do.

I agree with you that we must improve our client libraries and drivers. Put them in direct distribution, make them more easy to use and with modern features.

Guillaume Rongier · Dec 19, 2022

This post has been edited to make use of the IRIS Embedded Python Wrapper : https://github.com/grongierisc/iris-embedded-python-wrapper.

The old version :

alias irisvenv="/opt/intersystems/iris/bin/irispython -m venv .venv; rm .venv/bin/python3; ln -s /opt/intersystems/iris/bin/irispython .venv/bin/python3; source .venv/bin/activate;"

Was in fact not working, because of the irispython interpretor that doesn't support venv yet.

To make embedded python works with venv, please use :

alias irisvenv="python3 -m venv .venv; source .venv/bin/activate; pip install https://github.com/grongierisc/iris-embedded-python-wrapper/releases/download/v0.0.1/iris-0.0.1-py3-none-any.whl"

and make sure that the environment variable named IRISINSTALLDIR is pointing to the InterSystems IRIS installation directory.

export IRISINSTALLDIR=/opt/iris
Guillaume Rongier · Dec 16, 2022

Major update :

Now this module is available on Pypi:

Install with PyPI

pip3 install iris-pex-embedded-python

Import the ObjectScript classes, open an embedded python shell and run :

from grongier.pex import Utils
Utils.setup()

Known issues

If the module is not updated, make sure to remove the old version :

pip3 uninstall iris-pex-embedded-python

or manually remove the grongier folder in <iris_installation>/lib/python/

or force the installation with pip :

pip3 install --upgrade iris-pex-embedded-python --target <iris_installation>/lib/python/