The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed at converting text into objects based on a template that describes the format of the text, where the format of the text is not in a standardized format. The objects then being available for further processing. The conversion mechanism converts the text into a dead object. The template comprises an object header indicator and a corresponding object header pattern. A new object is created based on the object header pattern identified within the text. In addition, the template comprises one or more field indicators each having a corresponding field pattern. The field pattern may be in a format of a regular expression. A field type and associated value are created from a string associated with the field pattern.