Abstract: Examples disclosed herein relate to action reference instructions to identify a plurality of actions associated with a data element, create a pointer to an action set comprising a list of the plurality of actions, associate the pointer to the action set with the data element, follow the pointer to retrieve the plurality of actions associated with the data element according to the action set, and perform each of the plurality of actions on the data element

Abstract: In some examples, network switch includes a processing resource and a memory resource. The memory resource can include machine readable instructions to create a pointer to a memory address of a storage medium of a programmable ASIC, the memory address including a range of values for a flow rule field; receive a data packet to be matched against the flow rule; determine whether a value of the flow rule field for the received data packet falls within the range of values; and apply an action to the received data packet when it is determined that the flow rule field falls within the range of values.

Abstract: In some examples, a network switch includes a switch processing resource and a switch memory resource. The switch memory resource includes machine readable instructions to process a received data packet and to forward the received data packets to another device in a network. The switch further includes a programmable Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) that includes an ASIC processing resource and an ASIC memory resource. The ASIC memory resource includes machine readable instructions to manage a plurality of flow entities stored on the memory resource and to count, with a single counter, data relating to data packets that match multiple flow entities of the plurality of flow entities.