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 Objects | Class Type | Features |
|---|---|---|
CompoundAscii CompoundDoc DataModule | CompoundAscii | Can contain other objects. Stores text data. Records the changes between older versions of its contents. |
| CompoundBinary | CompoundBinary | Can contain other objects. Stores binary data. Stores complete copies of each version. |