Sink (computing)
In computing, a sink, or data sink generally refers to the destination of data flow. The word sink has multiple uses in computing. In software engineering, an event sink is a class or function that receives events from another object or function, while a sink can also refer to a node of a directed acyclic graph with no additional nodes leading out from it, among other uses.
In software engineering
An event sink is a class or function designed to receive incoming events from another object or function. This is commonly implemented in C++ as callbacks. Other object-oriented languages, such as Java and C#, have built-in support for sinks by allowing events to be fired to delegate functions.
Due to lack of formal definition, a sink is often misconstrued with a gateway, which is a similar construct but the latter is usually either an end-point or allows bi-direction communication between dissimilar systems, as opposed to just an event input point[citation needed]. This is often seen in C++ and hardware-related programming[citation needed], thus the choice of nomenclature by a developer usually depends on whether the agent acting on a sink is a producer or consumer of the sink content.
In graph theory
In a Directed acyclic graph, a source node is a node (also known as a vertex) with no incoming connections from other nodes, while a sink node is a node without outgoing connections.[1]
Directed acyclic graphs are used in instruction scheduling, neural networks and data compression.
In stream processing
In several computer programs employing streams, such as GStreamer, PulseAudio, or PipeWire, a source is the starting point of a pipeline which produces a stream but does not consume any, while a sink is the end point which accepts a stream without producing any.[2]
An example is an audio pipeline in the PulseAudio sound system. An input device such as a microphone is a type of audio source, while an output device like a speaker is the audio sink.[3]
Other uses
The word sink has been used for both input and output in the industry.[citation needed] Mobile sink is proposed to save sensor energy for multihop communication in transferring data to a base station (sink) in wireless sensor networks.
See also
- Flow network
- Event-driven architecture
References
- ↑ "What is a sink in graph theory?". https://askinglot.com/what-is-a-sink-in-graph-theory.[|permanent dead link|dead link}}]
- ↑ "Elements". https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/application-development/basics/elements.html#sink-elements.
- ↑ "About – PulseAudio". https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/About/#aboutpulseaudio.
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