Efficient and accurate lookups of data by a stream processor using a hash table

Responsive to a data lookup in a buffer triggered for a search string, a processor searches for a selection of pairs from among multiple pairs of a hash table read from at least one address hash of the search string and matching at least one data hash of the search string, each row of the hash table assigned to a separate address hash, each of the pairs comprising a pointer to a location in the buffer and a tag with a previous data hash of a previously buffered string in the buffer. The processor identifies, from among the selection of pairs, at least one separate location in the buffer most frequently pointed to by two or more pointers within the selection of pairs. The processor, responsive to at least one read string from the buffer at the at least one separate location matching at least a substring of the search string, outputs the at least one separate location as the response to the data lookup.