An approach for propagating changes from a database to a client includes providing to the client a copy of a portion of the database, wherein the portion of the database contains a first data item. An updated value of the first data item is generated that reflects the application of a plurality of changes to the first data item. The updated value of the first data item is provided to the client with operator data that indicates one or more operations to be performed to update the copy of the portion of the database at the client with the updated value of the first data item. As used herein, the term "data item" may refer to any type of data. For example, in the context of database systems, a data item may be an individual value, a database record containing several values, e.g., a row, a database table, or a group of database tables.