Abstract: In an object-oriented application being executed in a digital computing system comprising a processor, a method and apparatus are provided for managing information retrieved from a structured database, such as a relational database, wherein the processor is used to construct a plurality of object instances, each of these object instances having its own unique object ID that provides a mapping between the object instance and at least one row in the structured database. The processor is used to construct a single cohesive data structure, called an object cache, that comprises all the object instances and that represents information retrieved from the structured database in a form suitable for use by one or more object-oriented applications.