Reuse of immutable objects during object creation

An apparatus, program product, and method of processing a request to create an immutable object reuse an existing immutable object in appropriate circumstances to represent redundant data without the necessity for creating an additional immutable object. Prior to creating a new object in response to a request to create an immutable object, a determination is made as to whether a matching immutable object already exists that has the same contents as the requested immutable object. If so, creation of a new object is inhibited, and a reference to the matching immutable object is returned in response to the request.