I'm currently working with the versant object database (using jvi), and have a case where I need to query the database based on an object id. What I'm trying to achieve is something along the lines of

Employee employee = new Employee("Mr. Pickles");
session.commit();

FundVQLQuery q = new FundVQLQuery(session, 
                 "select * from Employee employee where employee = $1");
q.bind(employee);
q.execute();

However, I'm finding out the hard way (I get an EVJ_NOT_A_VALID_KEY_TYPE error thrown at me) that this is infact not the way to do it. Anyone got any experience in working with VQL?

Your help is much apreciated!

A small clarification:

The problem is I'm running some performance tests on the database using the pole position framework, and one of the tests in that framework requires me to fetch an object from the database using either an object reference or a low level object id. Thus, I'm not allowed to reference specific fields in the employee object, but must perform the query on the object in its entirety. So, it's not allowed for me to go "select * from Employee e where e.id = 4", I need it to use the entire object.

Accepted answer:

Since there is some sort of lunacy magic built into SO that prevents me to mark an accepted answer after a bounty has run out, readers should know that the answer posted by Chris Holmes solves this issue. Readers are encouraged to up-vote his post to further signalize the correctness of his answer to any future readers of this thread.