NetBeans Wiki: DevFaqDataObject

The text below is paracopied from the link above.

A DataObject represents several FileObjects.

DataObjects know what kind of files they have You usually interact with DataObjects by asking them for instances of interfaces **

DataObject.getCookie(Class class)

DataObjects are used by the Scheduling module, so that Schedules can obtain Schedulable instances by knowing the name. The code below: gets a file object from the System Filesystem gets a data object which corresponds with that file object. obtains an InstanceCookie

FileObject fileObj = Repository.getDefault().getDefaultFileSystem().getRoot().getFileObject("Digitizers/DefaultDigitizer.settings");
DataObject ob = DataObject.find(fileObj);
InstanceCookie ck = (InstanceCookie) ob.getCookie(InstanceCookie.class);
Digitizer digi = (Digitizer) ck.instanceCreate();
digi.keepDataObject(ob);
return digi;

see Cookies