data flow analysis

data flow analysis

[′dad·ə ¦flō ə‚nal·ə·səs]

(computer science)

The development of models for the movement of information within an organization, indicating the sources and destinations of information and where and how information is transmitted, processed, and stored.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

data flow analysis

(programming)

A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example, given the equations

1. X = A + B 2. B = 2 + 2 3. A = 3 + 4

a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel.

This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)