Patent ID: 8527484

Claim:
A method for facilitating access by an application to a data structure comprising a plurality of objects, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, at a processor, a request from the application initiating a return of the data structure, wherein the request is received within an application programming interface, and wherein the application programming interface performs a process of resolving the data structure; assigning a respective handle to each of a set of objects, wherein the set comprises one or more objects selected from the plurality of objects, wherein assigning is performed by the application programming interface, and wherein at least one of the set comprises an object having an unresolved handle, and wherein the unresolved handle indicates that the object is unresolved; retrieving the object from the set of objects using the respective handle to reference the object, wherein until retrieved the object of the data structure remains in the data structure and remains unresolved; storing the object retrieved in a memory location; and providing access to the object retrieved to the application.