A virtual machine (e.g. the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)) may include extensions for compiling objects (e.g. Java Objects) into data representation language (e.g. XML) representations of the objects, and for decompiling representations of objects into objects. The virtual machine may supply an API to the compilation/decompilation extensions. The compiler/decompiler API may accept an object as input, and output a data representation language representation of the object and all its referenced objects (the object graph) in a data stream. In addition, the compiler/decompiler API may accept a data stream, which includes a representation of the object and all its referenced objects (the object graph), and output the object (and all the objects in its object graph). In one embodiment, an intermediary format may be used to represent a data representation language document and may be dynamically processed to generate a class instance from the data representation language document.