Patent ID: 7373639

Claim:
A method of processing data comprising: compiling a definition of a class which supports options, each option defined in the class or through a class inheritance hierarchy, and each option having an option value associated therewith, wherein in instances of the class the options are referenceable without allocation of memory space for the associated option values when instances of the class are created, and wherein compiling the definition comprises generating a class describing data structure, wherein the class describing data structure is associated with at least one option describing data structure, the at least one option describing data structure comprising a type description corresponding to each option defined in the class or through the class inheritance hierarchy; and compiling an operation on a value associated with a selected option in an instance of the class, wherein compiling the operation comprises searching the at least one option describing data structure associated with the class describing data structure to locate the type description corresponding to the selected option, and using the type description to type check the operation.