The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product
for fast and efficient IP (Internet Protocol) address lookup. IP address values
are interpreted using a separate array for each 8-bit component of the address.
This technique is therefore exploitable in a multi-processing environment. The
IP address look-up time when using the present invention is nearly constant, regardless
of the particular address value. Minimal, if any, locking is required. This technique
can be used equally well with class-specific IP version 4 32-bit addresses
and with Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), and easily extends to use with
IP version 6 128-bit addresses.
