1. A device comprising: at least one processor configured to match at least one pattern in an input stream of data by traversing a data structure generated from one or more regular expressions for a content processing application; and at least one memory operatively coupled to the at least one processor and configured to store the generated data structure, the generated data structure including at least one node providing information to perform at least one task based on traversing the at least one node, enabling the at least one processor to generate and check state information at the at least one node to obviate a post-processing overhead of the at least one pattern matched, to improve performance of the at least one processor relative to performing post-processing of results for the content processing application.