Method and system for communication between application programs and a network

System for communication between an application program and a network device driver program and vice versa through intermediate structure software, comprising:

• a. a first program object being part of the intermediate structure software and for performing of first functions on data units, said data units being transferred to and from the application program and data units being transferred to and from said first program object;
• b. a second program object being part of the intermediate structure software and for performing of second functions on said data units, said data units being transferred to and from said second program object and data units being transferred to and from the network driver;
• wherein transferring data units between program objects is accomplished by passing references pointing to memory locations storing data of the data units such that the references are passed between program objects and the data of the data units is not passed directly between program objects, and
• wherein for at least one data unit, data of the data unit is not moved from the referenced memory location of that data unit to a different memory location while the first program object performs said first functions and while the second program object performs said second functions.

Method for communication between a network device driver program and an application program through intermediate structure software, comprising the steps of:

• a. supplying of first data units form the network device driver program to a first program object or protocol object being part of the intermediate structure software;
• b. performing of first functions of the first program object on said first data units;
• c. supply of resulting second data units from the first program object to a second program object being part of the intermediate structure software;
• d. performing of second functions of the second program object on the second data units;
• e. supplying of resulting application data units from the second program object to said application program;
• wherein supplying data units between program objects is accomplished by passing references pointing to memory locations storing data of the data units such that the references are passed between program objects and the data of the data units is not passed directly between program objects, and
• wherein for at least one application data unit, the referenced memory location storing data of the application data unit is the same memory location as the referenced memory location storing at least some of the data of the corresponding first data unit and as the referenced memory location for storing at least some of the data of the corresponding second data unit.