Patent ID: 7181724

Claim:
A computer readable medium including at least computer program code for representing data types of a platform-independent programming language in a virtual machine, wherein said computer medium comprises computer program code to perform the method comprising: storing a predetermined set of primitive data type indicators inside said virtual machine, wherein each one of said primitive data type indicators can be independently and directly referenced by a reference and each one of said primitive data type indicators represents only one primitive data type of said platform-independent programming language, and wherein all primitive data types of said platform-independent programming language are represented by said set of primitive data type indicators; storing an array of references suitable for representing data types inside said virtual machine, wherein said array of references is a data structure defined by said platform-independent programming language and has been allocated as an arranged sequence of references, wherein each of said references can directly and independently reference data by referring to the address where said data is stored, wherein each of said references in said array of references have the same fixed allocation size, thereby allowing each of said references to be uniquely identified by an expression consisting of an array name followed by an index; accessing at least one reference in said array of references which is directly referencing a primitive data type indicator in said set of primitive data type indicators; and accessing at least one other reference in said array of references which is directly referencing the address of an internal class representation that has been stored inside said virtual machine, wherein said internal class representation is a representation of a class of said platform-independent programming language which has been loaded inside said virtual machine, thereby allowing said internal class representation to be accessed by directly referencing said at least one other reference in said array of references.