Patent ID: 6985438

Claim:
A method for processing and forwarding data packets comprising the steps of: providing at least one route table comprising entries, at least one of which contains an input index field, an output index field, and at least one operation code or a program for the execution of an operation, assigning a selector serving as indexing datum to each data packet, the data packet and its selector being parts of a token, matching of the selector of a packet matched with the input index field of the entries of said at least one route table, executing on the matched token of the at least one operation contained in the at least one matched route table entry, and maintaining at least one multi-set of tokens, that every matched token is removed from said at least one multi-set, that the packet of such a matched token depending on the semantics of the operation referenced by the matched route table entry, is forwarded or destroyed or at least one new token is generated and again added to one of said at least one multi-set, the selector of said at least one new token being copied from the output index field of the matched route table entry or being otherwise computed.