Abstract: System and method for searching a data structure are disclosed. The method includes providing a data structure that includes a plurality of data entries stored in an external random access memory (RAM) and a portion of the data structure is stored in an internal cache memory, performing one or more hash functions on each entry of the data structure to generate an encoding that maps to a location in the external RAM, maintaining a count of encodings that map to the location in the external RAM, receiving a search string, performing the one or more hash functions on the search string to generate an index to the count of encodings, and searching the data structure in accordance with the count of encodings stored in the internal cache memory and in the external RAM.

Abstract: System and method for controlling updates of a data structure are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a data structure that includes a hierarchically arranged set of nodes and branches, and each node has two or less branches, recording a total number of nodes in the data structure, determining whether to update the data structure according to one or more triggering conditions, generating an updated data structure in response to the one or more triggering conditions, and storing the updated data structure in a memory. The method of recording a total number of nodes includes incrementing a count of the total number of nodes by one when a new node is added to the data structure, and decrementing a count of the total number of nodes by one when a node is removed from the data structure.

Abstract: System and method for updating a data structure are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a data structure that includes a hierarchically arranged set of nodes and branches, and each node has two or less branches, retrieving a first data entry in the data structure via a first node in response to a first data access request, modifying the data structure to generate a first intermediate data structure that keeps the first node and creates a duplicate of the first node, and retrieving a second data entry in the data structure via the duplicate of first node in response to a second data access request. By maintaining at least the first node or a duplicate of the first node during a rebalancing operation of the data structure, the disclosed method supports accessing data entries associated with the first node during the rebalancing operation and therefore improves system performance.