13. The system according to claim 7 wherein an object in the object database has an associated metadata object used by the object database to manage to the database.
7. A system for managing an object database for objects comprising: a computer system with at least one processor and memory; a query manager executing in the memory of the computer system for receiving an database path query expression comprising a main query expression and a treat-as query expression; a query translator executing in the memory of the computer system for forming an object query from the path query; a query engine executing in the memory of the computer system for querying the object database using the object query; and wherein the query translator comprises: node generator for breaking the path query into nodes; a node processor for examining each node to indicate main query objects from the main query expression and treat-as query objects from the trea-as query expression; a tracker for consolidating main query objects for selection into a SELECT clause and for consolidating main query objects from which selection is made into a FROM clause; a sub-tracker for consolidating sub-query objects for selection from each node into a SELECT clause and for consolidating sub-query objects from which selection is made into a FROM clause; and a query register and generator for forming the object query from the SELECT clause; from the FROM clause; and from a WHERE clause wherein the WHERE clause consists of the sub-SELECT clause and the sub-FROM clause and a sub-WHERE clause that links the scope of the sub-SELECT clause to the scope of the SELECT clause.