An example method of providing a list of entities includes obtaining a list of entities responsive to a request from a client. Each entity in the list includes a set of attribute name-value pairs. The method also includes recursively dividing the list of entities into subgroups and for each division resulting in a plurality of subgroups including one or more entities, and assigning a subgroup number to each of the corresponding entity's attribute names by which the division is based. The method also includes generating a logical message tree of entities. The method further includes sorting the list of entities based on the order of the entities in the logical message tree and serializing the sorted list of entities into a data stream. The method also includes transmitting a list of subgroup numbers and the entities in the sorted order over a network to the client.