data flow

data flow

(1) In computers, the path of data from source document to data entry to processing to final reports. Data changes format and sequence (within a file) as it moves from program to program.

(2) In communications, the path taken by a message from origination to destination that includes all nodes through which the data travels.

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data flow [′dad·ə ‚flō]

(communications)

The route followed by a data message from its origination to its destination, including all the nodes through which it travels.

(computer science)

The transfer of data from an external storage device, through the processing unit and memory, and out to an external storage device.

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data flow - A data flow architecture or language performs a computation when all the operands are available. Data flow is one kind of data driven architecture, the other is demand driven. It is a technique for specifying parallel computation at a fine-grain level, usually in the form of two-dimensional graphs in which instructions that are available for concurrent execution are written alongside each other while those that must be executed in sequence are written one under the other. Data dependencies between instructions are indicated by directed arcs. Instructions do not reference memory since the data dependence arcs allow data to be transmitted directly from the producing instruction to the consuming one. Data flow schemes differ chiefly in the way that they handle re-entrant code. Static schemes disallow it, dynamic schemes use either "code copying" or "tagging" at every point of reentry. An example of a data flow architecture is MIT's VAL machine.