The Design Object Access theme is based, in part, on an internal stamp system for objects. As objects are modified, the stamp is increased.

The object stamps are useful for detecting which objects have been changed and, thus, are used by the METHOD GET PATHS command to get the paths to all methods changed since a given stamp.

METHOD GET PATHS(Path All objects ;$methodsToSave_at;$currentMethodStamp_l)

In the obvious case the stamp would increase for a method being saved. There are some less obvious cases however. Switching from Design Mode to Application mode, for example, causes the objects in any open editor windows to be saved. E.g. if there are two methods open in Design mode, the stamp will increase by at least 2 when switching from Design mode to Application mode.

The more general point is that the stamp value may increase without direct object manipulation. This is normal. The important thing is that 4D is smart enough to know if the resources have changed, regardless of whether or not the stamp has increased. I.e. METHOD GET PATHS will only return paths if the methods really were changed.