Patent ID: 6941427

Claim:
A method for traversing a queue, comprising: issuing a command; determining if the command needs to be reissued; clearing a validity flag for the command if the command does not need to be reissued; determining the location of the next command to be reissued; and associating the location of the next command to be reissued with the command that needs to be reissued, wherein the command that needs to be reissued and the next command to be reissued are stored in a queue; in parallel with the clearing step, updating the queue whereby a current valid address pointer is maintained in each entry of the queue, wherein the queue is updated by a next valid address logic which is independent from a queue processing logic, wherein each entry in the queue includes a valid address pointer to a successor entry which has a valid address, wherein a next valid address pointer for each entry of the queue of commands is calculated by the next valid address logic.