object–relational mapping

Object–relational mapping (ORM, O/RM, and O/R mapping tool) in computer science is a programming technique for converting data between a relational database and the memory (usually the heap) of an object-oriented programming language. This creates, in effect, a virtual object database that can be used from within the program.

In object-oriented programming, data-management tasks act on objects that combine scalar values into objects. For example, consider an address book entry that represents a single person along with zero or more phone numbers and zero or more addresses. This could be modeled in an object-oriented implementation by a "Person object" with an attribute/field to hold each data item that the entry comprises: the person's name, a list of phone numbers, and a list of addresses. The list of phone numbers would itself contain "PhoneNumber objects" and so on. Each such address-book entry is treated as a single object by the programming language (it can be referenced by a single variable containing a pointer to the object, for instance). Various methods can be associated with the object, such as methods to return the preferred phone number, the home address, and so on.