Completely new to databases:

In general...

If I save an object to a database how would I query to obtain the properties of the object.
Would I query to return the object and then get the properties via client code; or, is there a way for the database itself to return the properties even if the properties are not stored individually within the database.
Are there any database procedures etc that could return the individual property values given just an object?

Logically, it seems to me that you'd need to obtain the object and then the client code would work with the object.

Thanks