Patent ID: 7644080

Claim:
A content search system for determining whether a plurality of input strings each belonging to any one of a number of different process flows matches one or more of a plurality of regular expressions, the content search system comprising: a first search circuit for searching the input strings for the regular expressions; a data management unit, comprising: a control circuit having an input to receive the plurality of input strings, wherein each input string has an associated flow identification (ID) value that indicates which of the process flows the input string belongs to; a packet queue coupled to the control circuit and having a number of storage locations for storing the input strings, wherein the input strings are selectively stored in the storage locations in the packet queue according to their flow ID values; and a flow engine having an input coupled to the packet queue and having an output coupled to the first search circuit, wherein the flow engine is configured to forward a selected input string from the packet queue to the first search circuit; and a result memory coupled to the data management unit and including a plurality of storage locations, each for storing a result code for a corresponding one of the regular expressions, wherein the result code comprises a trigger bit that indicates whether the corresponding regular expression requires additional search operations in a second search circuit that is separate from the first search circuit.