The invention relates to a network technique, especially an
IP address searching method. In order to solve the problem of traversal performance and memory consumption of multi-
branch Trie tree, the invention discloses a traversal method of multi-
branch Trie tree for increasing traversal performance and reducing memory consumption. The technical scheme is that: when a node is treating, firstly, a treated
record last time is compared with the node, if the node has been treated already, then, next node is traversal, if not, the node is treated by
processing function; after the node has been treated, the node position information,
IP prefix information corresponding to the position, block pointer and
IP prefix information of its each level ancestor are recorded. The method provided by the invention has advantages that memory
capacitance is reduced, distributing and releasing memory are not needed, other
IP prefix information of the level needs not cached, comparison with other IP prefix of the level is not needed and traversal performance is increased. Because of employing preorder traversal method, treating order can be ensured.