Data processing method and apparatus, forwarding chip, and network device

A data processing method, which is applied to any forwarding chip in a network device, wherein the network device is a network device on a multiple sending and selective receiving path, the method comprising:

• acquiring a first packet that needs to be forwarded through the multiple sending and selective receiving path;
• forwarding, if the network device is a source network device on the multiple sending and selective receiving path, the first packet to a next hop network device on the multiple sending and selective receiving path respectively through multiple paths comprised in the multiple sending and selective receiving path;
• forwarding, if the network device is an intermediate network device on the multiple sending and selective receiving path, the first packet to a next hop network device on the multiple sending and selective receiving path;
• extracting, if the network device is a destination network device on the multiple sending and selective receiving path, packet information from the first packet, storing extracted packet information if the extracted packet information is not stored in the network device, and forwarding the first packet to a destination terminal, wherein the packet information of the first packet is used to distinguish different packets of a same traffic flow and different packets of different traffic flows.