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Slices

While Hybrid objects store all their data in one instance, Compound objects store data in slices.

Tools that extract data from a tree of Hybrid objects generally retrieve all the data from a Hybrid object before moving to its children. There are cases, however, in which it is desirable to have data appear before, between, or after a Hybrid object's children.

Compound objects address this issue with the concept of slices. A slice is a pointer to either a piece of data or a child object. Each Compound object contains a list of the slices that manage all its pieces of data or children.

The following table lists the Class Types and unique features of Compound objects.

Contenta ObjectsClass TypeFeatures

CompoundAscii

CompoundDoc

DataModule

CompoundAscii

Can contain other objects.

Stores text data.

Records the changes between older versions of its contents.

CompoundBinaryCompoundBinary

Can contain other objects.

Stores binary data.

Stores complete copies of each version.