A database may store an object comprising a hierarchy of sub-objects. Numeric identifiers may be assigned to names of the sub-objects and used in place of the names when writing the object to storage. Scalar values may be prefixed with length indicators. Collections may be prefixed with counts indicative of the number of elements in the corresponding collection. A portion of the object may be retrieved from storage by traversing a path from the root of the hierarchy to the desired portion. Length and count information may be used to skip over portions of the object during the traversal.