| P of EAA Catalog |

Value Object

A small simple object, like money or a date range, whose equality isn't based on identity.

For a full description see P of EAA page 486

With object systems of various kinds, I've found it useful to distinguish between reference objects and Value Objects. Of the two a Value Object is usually the smaller; it's similar to the primitive types present in many languages that aren't purely object-oriented.