Patent ID: 7096419

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for persisting private object state data created within an object development environment, comprising the steps of: determining the private object state data of objects used within the object development environment; wherein the objects are queried with respect to their private object state in order to determine the private object state data; wherein the private state data is an object's internal state data, and public state data is data that can be retrieved via public method calls or public fields; wherein a computer-readable file is in a human-understandable format; determining whether the private object state data of the objects has been modified from initial values given to the objects upon the objects' creation; storing in a computer-readable file the private object state data that has been determined to have been modified; and wherein the computer-readable file is in the human-understandable format, thereby allowing a text editing computer program to directly edit the computer-readable file; restoring from the computer-readable file the private object state data that had been determined to have been modified.