Object database

An object database (also object-oriented database management system, OODBMS) is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases are different from relational databases which are table-oriented. Object-relational databases are a hybrid of both approaches.

Object databases have been considered since the early 1980s.

Object-oriented database management systems (OODBMSs) combines database capabilities with object-oriented programming language capabilities. OODBMSs allow object-oriented programmers to develop the product, store them as objects, and replicate or modify existing objects to make new objects within the OODBMS. Because the database is integrated with the programming language, the programmer can maintain consistency within one environment, in that both the OODBMS and the programming language will use the same model of representation. Relational DBMS projects, by way of contrast, maintain a clearer division between the database model and the application.

As the usage of web-based technology increases with the implementation of Intranets and extranets, companies have a vested interest in OODBMSs to display their complex data. Using a DBMS that has been specifically designed to store data as objects gives an advantage to those companies that are geared towards multimedia presentation or organizations that utilize computer-aided design (CAD).

Some object-oriented databases are designed to work well with object-oriented programming languages such as Delphi, Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, C#, Visual Basic .NET, C++, Objective-C and Smalltalk; others such as JADE have their own programming languages. OODBMSs use exactly the same model as object-oriented programming languages.

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