A method and apparatus of a network element that processes data by a network element with a data processing pipeline is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the network element receives network data and performs a policy-based routing lookup using one or more characteristics of the network data to retrieve a next hop identifier. In addition, the network element generates a key for the next hop identifier and performs a longest prefix match lookup to retrieve a forwarding result. The network element further determines a next hop interface based on the forwarding result.