OBJECT SYNTHESIS

Apparatus, methods, and other embodiments associated with object synthesis are described. One example apparatus includes logic for identifying a block in a data de-duplication repository and for identifying a reference to the block. The apparatus also includes logic for representing a source object using a first named, organized collection of references to blocks in the data de-duplication repository and logic for representing a target object using a second named, organized collection of references. The apparatus is configured to synthesize the target object from the source object. Since synthesis may be complicated by edge cases, the apparatus is configured to account for conditions including a block in the target object needing less than all the data in a source object block, data to be used to synthesize the target object residing in a sparse hole in a data stream, and the target object needing data not present in the source object.