Abstract: A method and apparatus for saving and restoring persistent objects in a distributed object-oriented programming environment. This invention maintains persistent values for individual attributes and or instance variables. Attribute persistence is implemented using an interface that is inherited by any class that wants to have persistent attributes. The interface provides load.sub.-- attribute and store.sub.-- attribute methods that provide TypeCode based encoding and decoding. The methods provide improved performance by maintaining a cached copy of the encoded attribute and its TypeCode in memory in addition to the copy that exist in external storage. This allows the load.sub.-- attribute method to return the attribute without having to access external storage. Performance is enhanced during the object restoration process by restoring only the attribute values currently needed instead of the entire object.