1. In a computing environment, a method comprising: analyzing upstream pre-patch code for a computer program to identify a definition for a data structure comprising a plurality of data elements; analyzing upstream post-patch code for the computer program to determine whether additional initialization functionality is required for a hot update, wherein analyzing upstream post-patch code comprises determining whether the upstream post-patch code includes a data structure definition comprising the plurality of data elements and an additional data element not included in the upstream pre-patch code; augmenting the upstream post-patch code to provide augmented post-patch code, the augmented post-patch code having additional initialization functionality; processing the augmented post-patch code with an object code hot update system to generate the hot update; and configuring the hot update to provide the additional initialization functionality to a target system having a memory for data and executable code and comprising the data structure with the plurality of data elements, wherein the additional initialization functionality includes functionality to create, in the memory of the target system, a shadow data structure comprising the additional data element and a pointer to the data structure comprising the plurality of data elements.