System and method for managing memory

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory, coupled to the processor, having instruction sequences to cause said processor to:
• receive a request, by an application program, for a reference,
• store a node as part of a data structure in response to said first request, said data structure to include at least a portion of a data set and to be organized as a plurality of nodes, and,
• return the reference to the application program.

A method of for providing data to an application program, comprising:

• receiving and parsing at least a portion of a data set over a network connection;
• issuing a node request to a data storage system, by an application program, for a reference, said reference to be one of a child node reference, a sibling node reference and a parent node reference;
• storing a node in a memory of the data storage system as part of a data structure in response to said node request, said data structure to include at least a portion of the data set and to be organized as a plurality of nodes;
• returning the reference to the application program;
• accessing the node, by the application program, using the reference;
• and,
• issuing a de-allocation request, by the application program, for the node, said deallocation request to be made when the application program is no longer using the node, said de-allocation request to cause said application program to no longer be able to access said node using the reference.

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer program code embodied therein to display information, the computer program product having:
• computer readable program code to receive and parse at least a portion of a data set over a network connection;
• computer readable program code to issue a node request to a data storage system, by an application program, for a reference, said reference to be one of a child node reference, a sibling node reference and a parent node reference;
• computer readable program code to store a node in a memory of the data storage system as part of a data structure in response to said node request, said data structure to include at least a portion of the data set and to be organized as a plurality of nodes for which references have been returned to the application program;
• computer readable program code to return the reference to the application program;
• computer readable program code to access the node, by the application program, using the reference;
• computer readable program code to issue a de-allocation request, by the application program, for the node, said de-allocation request to be made when the application program is no longer using the node, said de-allocation request to cause said application program to no longer be able to access said node using the reference;
• and,
• computer readable program code to store a pre-fetched node in the memory as part of the data structure, where the pre-fetched node corresponds to at least a portion of the data set not previously associated with a provided reference.