The Object-Oriented Thought Process, Fourth Edition

Saving the Object to a Flat File

In this section, we use a flat file to illustrate object persistence. I define a flat file as a simple file managed by the operating system. This is a very basic concept, so don’t get too caught up in this description.

Flat Files

Many people are not totally comfortable with the term flat file. The word flat implies that the object is literally flattened, and in a way it is. You almost can think of this flattening process as necessary to store and transport an object, regardless of its complexity.

One of the issues you might have considered is that an object cannot be saved to a file like a simple variable—and this is true. In fact, this problem of saving the state of an object has spawned a major segment of ...