Patent ID: 7426721

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for representing computer programming language objects in a data representation language, the method comprising: a process executing within a virtual machine providing a first computer programming language object to a compilation process of the virtual machine, wherein the first object is an instance of a class in the computer programming language; and the compilation process of the virtual machine converting the first object into a data representation language representation of the first object; wherein the data representation language representation of the first object is configured for use in generating a copy of the first object; wherein the compilation process of the virtual machine converting the first object into a data representation language representation of the first object comprises: processing the first object into an intermediary hash table representation of the first object, wherein at least one entry of the intermediary hash table representation includes: a hash key including a name of an instance variable of the first object; and a value for the instance variable; and processing the intermediary hash table representation of the first object into the data representation language representation of the first object.