Patent ID: 8171054

Claim:
A method for storing an attribute, comprising: receiving an attribute of a hierarchical class-based object, wherein the attribute is associated with a customization object that is not part of a hierarchy of class-based objects but is attached to an instance of the hierarchical class-based object to result in adding the attribute to the instance of the hierarchical class-based object, wherein the attribute comprises a new attribute not defined in a class associated with the hierarchical class-based object; and storing the attribute in a database both in a location in a first table and in a location in a second table, wherein the first table is associated with a first level of a hierarchy of database tables based at least in part on a class hierarchy associated with the hierarchical class-based object and the second table is associated with a second level of the hierarchy of database tables, wherein the second level is higher than the first level and is accessed faster than the first level, wherein the first table is associated with the customization object, wherein the stored attribute in the location in the second table is accessed as a set of attributes.