Patent ID: 7822032

Claim:
A non-transitory processor readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor in a switch, cause the switch to perform a method for implementing one or more packet modification operations on a packet received at the switch, wherein the method comprises: associating a data structure link with the packet received at the switch by inserting a data structure index corresponding to the data structure link into a header of the packet; retrieving a data structure from memory of the switch via the data structure link associated with the packet, wherein the data structure comprises: a first pointer to a sequence of commands for execution by a processor of the switch to implement the one or more packet modification operations stored in packed format with more than one command stored in a single addressable entry in a sequence in a first memory area of the memory, and a second pointer to a burst of data or mask items stored in packed format with more than one data or mask item stored in a single addressable entry in the stored burst in a second memory area of the memory distinct from the first memory area, the burst of data or mask items for use by the processor in executing the one or more commands; retrieving the commands in the sequence from the first memory area via the first pointer; retrieving the data or mask items in the burst from the second memory area via the second pointer; and performing one or more packet modification operations on the packet by executing the commands in the sequence via the processor using the burst of data or mask items as operands or masks for operands in the one or more packet modification operations performed.