A flexible database that supports the use of abstract data types, objects, and classes and that can store a wide range of data, often including sound, video, and graphics, in addition to text and numbers. Some object-oriented databases allow data retrieval procedures and rules for processing data to be stored along with the data or in place of the data. This allows the data to be stored in areas other than in the physical database, which is often desirable when the data files are large, such as those for video files.