Patent ID: 8615635

Claim:
A device-implemented method, comprising: populating a device-implemented cache with a plurality of data elements, where each of the plurality of data elements points to an associated one of a plurality of records in a memory structure; identifying one of the plurality of data elements pointing to an oldest one of the plurality of records in the memory structure; removing the oldest one of the plurality of records from the memory structure; and removing, from the cache, the one of the plurality of data elements pointing to the oldest one of the plurality of records in the memory structure, where the one of the plurality of data elements pointing to the oldest one of the plurality of records in the memory structure is added to a floating data element list that maintains a memory allocation previously relating the one of the plurality of data elements pointing to the oldest one of the plurality of records in the memory structure, and where the floating data element list is referenced by a floating node pointer, located in the cache, the floating node pointer comprising the oldest one of the plurality of records in the memory structure and the floating node pointer designating a head of the floating data element list, where the floating node pointer sorts the plurality of data elements without allocations or de-allocations of records of the memory structure.