1. A computer-implemented method for recreating a complex data object having a structure, the method comprising: obtaining a persistent representation of the structure of the complex data object as a sequence of directly executable instructions, wherein the directly executable instructions are calls to a set of predefined functions; interpreting the directly executable instructions as calls to a set of predefined functions; and calling a predefined function corresponding to each directly executable instruction in the sequence of directly executable instructions so as to construct the complex data object directly from the persistent representation, without parsing the persistent representation.