This technology relates to encoding data. For example, a sequence of one or more structured records as input data, at least one of the structured records including one or more field tags and associated field data. The input data may be parsed into data buffers, each data buffer corresponding to a field tag in the one or more field tags, wherein each data buffer includes the associated field data of the corresponding field tag. A control sequence specifying a sequence of the one or more fields tags may be encoded into a transition record. A state machine comprising nodes and transitions may be generated, with each node corresponding to occurrences of the one or more field tags and each transition corresponding to successive pairs of the one or more field tags. The data buffers, a representation of the state machine, and the encoded control sequence may be output.