Method and apparatus to facilitate transactional consistency for references in object-relational databases

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates transactional consistency for references in an object-relational database. The system operates by first receiving a reference to an object located in the object-relational database. Next, the system creates a reference object within local storage that includes an object descriptor to indicate whether the object has been loaded into local storage. The reference is stored in this reference object. A pointer within an application program can then point to the reference object, so that the application program can use the pointer to access the object.