As we keep updating our software, we often realize that we require more and more modern solutions. So far, only one major piece of our software relies on reading barcodes in documents and images. Since Cache did not have a means of reading barcodes in the past, we have always achieved our goals by using a Visual Basic 6 application. However, it is no longer an ideal solution because it is currently complicated to maintain it. IRIS also lacks this capability, but it has recently got an option that makes up for it: embedded Python!

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· Sep 11, 2024 9m read
Dates with InterSystems

Do not let the title of this article confuse you; we are not planning to take the InterSystems staff out to a fine Italian restaurant. Instead, this article will cover the principles of working with date and time data types in IRIS. When we use these data types, we should be aware of three different conversion issues:

  1. Converting between internal and ODBC formats.
  2. Converting between local time, UTC, and Posix time.
  3. Converting to and from various date display formats.

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· Jul 16, 2024 6m read
Method or Class Method?

For programmers new to ObjectScript, one question will inevitably arise: “What is the difference between methods and class methods?” A typical answer would be: “A class method applies to a class, but a method applies to an instance of that class.” While that answer is correct, it lacks important information on how these methods di

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· Apr 25, 2024 3m read
Making A Variable Watch Itself

I came up with a challenge for myself to come up with a way to make a variable watch itself for a certain value and do something when it hits that value without having to check it every time something touches it. Basically, a way to say "if at any point during the execution of this code, if x = 0 (or whatever the condition is) do this thing." The class I ended up with watches a %Status:

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The ideal number of table permissions to assign for your users is zero. Permissions should be granted upon sign-in based on the application used for access. For web applications, we have a simple way of doing this by appointing application roles, matching roles, and required resources in the System Management Portal.

ODBC and JDBC connections present a different problem, however, especially when third-party applications are involved. As providers of an ERP system, our customers often wish to be able to employ various software packages to integrate with or report on their data. Many of these programs are capable of running any kind of query. Yet, letting them do that can be devastating to a customer’s data.

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Here in %SYS, we have already examined users, resources, and roles. Now that we know how to set all of that up, we should give it a purpose. Next we will talk about applications! As you may expect, we will see various identical class methods defined here that we have seen in the previous classes. However, some of them will have some tiny yet significant differences.

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We are looking at what we need to do to migrate from our current usage of Zen reports to InterSystems Reports. One of the hurdles for us is figuring out ways to interact with InterSystems reports programmatically from ObjectScript routines. There is a Java API for it, but it is possible to generate a report from InterSystems reports to a stream object in ObjectScript without diving into Java by using a %Net.HttpRequest. Here is a code example, followed by an explanation:

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Pouring The Coffee: Creating and scheduling a task

Don't you wish a fresh, hot cup of coffee could be waiting for you right when you get into the office? Let's automate that!

Cache and IRIS come with a built-in Task Manager, which should have a familiar feel to those used to using the Windows task scheduler or using cron on Linux. Your user account will need access to the %Admin_Task resource to use it, and you can access it in the management portal under System Operation -> Task Manager. When first installed, there are roughly 20 types of task that you can schedule.

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