data processing

data processing or information processing, operations (e.g., handling, merging, sorting, and computing) performed upon data in accordance with strictly defined procedures, such as recording and summarizing the financial transactions of a business. In automatic or electronic data processing the operations are performed by a computer. In distributed data processing some or all of the operations are performed in different locations at computer facilities connected by telecommunications links.

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data processing

Manipulation of data by a computer. It includes the conversion of raw data to machine-readable form, flow of data through the CPU and memory to output devices, and formatting or transformation of output. Any use of computers to perform defined operations on data can be included under data processing. In the commercial world, data processing refers to the processing of data required to run organizations and businesses.

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data processing

(1) Processing data/information, which includes text, graphics, audio and video. The term may refer generically to the IT industry, or it may refer specifically to applications doing business processing (update this order, sum this amount, etc.) or applications doing multimedia processing (encode these frames, decode this file, etc.).

With reference to a user's machine, the term generally includes the rendering of the graphical user interface, which takes up most of the computer's resources. However, it may refer to only the business data processing cycles in contrast to the user interface. With reference to a server, data processing refers to all the processing in the machine, as there is no graphical user interface.

(2) The first name used for the information technology industry. From the early 1900s to the 1960s, it meant feeding punch cards into tabulating machines. See information processing cycle. See also preprocessing.

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data processing

a. a sequence of operations performed on data, esp by a computer, in order to extract information, reorder files, etc.

b. (as modifier): a data-processing centre

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data processing [′dad·ə ′präs‚es·iŋ]

(computer science)

Any operation or combination of operations on data, including everything that happens to data from the time they are observed or collected to the time they are destroyed. Also known as information processing.

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(application)

data processing - The input, verification, organisation, storage, retrieval, transformation, and extraction of information from data. The term is normally associated with commercial applications such as stock control or payroll.