Tokens for an API are assigned by the API's owner and published in the package export file(s) for that API. Since the name-to-token mappings are published, an API owner may choose any order for tokens (subject to the constraints listed below).

A particular device platform can resolve tokens into whatever internal representation is most useful for that implementation of a Java Card virtual machine. Some tokens may be resolved to indices. For example, an instance field token may be resolved to an index into a class instance's fields. In such cases, the token value is distinct from and unrelated to the value of the resolved index.