A method and apparatus for presenting and modifying data from a set of tables in a database is provided. A view that is defined is based on a set of one or more tables that may include relational tables or object tables. The view defines a presentation of data from the one or more tables as a set of objects that reside in the database. Data is read from the one or more rows of the tables based on the view, and is presented as a set of objects that reside in the database. An object id that is based on data from the one or more rows is generated and associated with each object presented. The view may specify which columns from the one or more tables contain values used to generate the object ids. A trigger may associated with the view. The set of objects presented may be presented as objects having an attribute that is a column object. Column objects include user specified object types, collection objects (e.g. nested tables and variable arrays), or references to objects.