DIRECT HARDWARE PROCESSING OF INTERNAL DATA STRUCTURE FIELDS

In some embodiments, the execution of load and store instructions for internal fields of data structures is accelerated by using on-chip template registers and appropriate machine code instructions. A load/store machine code instruction comprises an identifier of a memory address offset of an internal field word relative to a base address of the data structure, an identifier of an intra-word start bit of the internal field, and an identifier of an intra-word length of the internal field. The three identifiers may coincide, for example if the three identifiers are represented by an identity of a template register storing a template entry including the memory address offset, the start position, and the field length. The three identifiers may also be provided as part of a machine code instruction itself. Further provided are compilers, compiler methods, and hardware systems for implementing accelerated internal-field load and store operations.