Patent ID: 7574705

Claim:
A method for resolving symbolic references in a virtual machine to support in-place execution, comprising: loading an in-place executable file into the virtual machine; receiving a pointer that points to an unresolved symbol value in the in-place executable file, wherein the unresolved symbol value comprises an offset value that points to a subsequent unresolved symbol value in a chain of unresolved symbol values within the in-place executable file, and a token value that can be used to look up a corresponding resolved reference value in an unresolved symbol table; using the token value to look up the corresponding resolved reference in the unresolved symbol table; replacing the unresolved symbol value with the corresponding resolved reference; and wherein the unresolved symbol value additionally includes a flag, wherein if the flag is set, the method additionally involves: reading the memory location immediately following the unresolved symbol value for a supplemental unresolved symbol value, wherein the supplemental unresolved symbol value includes a supplemental flag, a supplemental token value, and a supplemental offset value; adding the token value and the supplemental token value to create a combined token value that can be used to look up the corresponding resolved reference in the unresolved symbol table; and adding the offset value and the supplemental offset value to create a combined offset value that can be used to locate the subsequent unresolved symbol value.