A data relay apparatus in which a search request command can be inputted efficiently to a content addressable/associative memory device. When a packet is inputted, a network processor generates a search request and passes it to the content addressable/associative memory device. Then the content addressable/associative memory device analyzes the structure of the search request and generates a plurality of search conditions. The content addressable/associative memory device makes a search according to each search condition and outputs a memory address corresponding to a detected piece of information to be searched to a memory device. The memory device passes a candidate search result corresponding to the memory address to the network processor as a search result.