Efficient support of sparse data structure access

Abstract

Method and apparatus to efficiently organize data in caches by storing/accessing data of varying sizes in cache lines. A value may be assigned to a field indicating the size of usable data stored in a cache line. If the field indicating the size of the usable data in the cache line indicates a size less than the maximum storage size, a value may be assigned to a field in the cache line indicating which subset of the data in the field to store data is usable data. A cache request may determine whether the size of the usable data in a cache line is equal to the maximum data storage size. If the size of the usable data in the cache line is equal to the maximum data storage size the entire stored data in the cache line may be returned.

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