Patent ID: 7401327

Claim:
A method of processing data comprising: defining an instance of a class, the class having defined fields, each of the defined fields having a field value, a field name, and a field data type, wherein memory space for each field value is allocated when the instance of the class is created, and defined options, each of the defined options having an option value, an option name, and an option data type, wherein memory space for the option value is allocated when each of the options corresponding to the option value is optionally associated with the instance of the class; accessing field values and option values in the instance using program code expressions having the same syntactic form, each of the program code expressions comprising an operator and a property name, the accessing further comprising accessing a selected field value in the instance using a first program code expression, the property name in the first program code expression comprising a field name corresponding to the selected field value, and accessing a selected option value in the instance using a second program code expression, the property name in the second program code expression comprising an option name corresponding to the selected option value; and during compilation, determining whether at least one of the program code expressions accesses one of (a) the selected field value or (b) the selected option value based on the property name in the at least one of the program code expressions; when it is determined that the selected field value is being accessed, compiling the first program code expression into a first code for accessing the selected field value; and when it is determined that the selected option value is being accessed, compiling the second program code expression into a second code for accessing the selected option value.