1. A method comprising: searching a content addressable memory based on an input comparand, wherein the input comparand comprises a collection of bits; receiving a comparand overlay pointer, wherein the comparand overlay pointer identifies selected bits of the input comparand to modify; generating a modified comparand by modifying the input comparand, wherein the modified comparand is based at least in part on a comparand overlay data value and the comparand overlay pointer; and searching the content addressable memory with the modified comparand.