Stream (computing)

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In computer science, a stream is a sequence of potentially unlimited data elements made available over time. A stream can be thought of as items on a conveyor belt being processed one at a time rather than in large batches. Streams are processed differently from batch data.

Normal functions cannot operate on streams as a whole because they have potentially unlimited data. Formally, streams are codata (potentially unlimited), not data (which is finite).

Functions that operate on a stream producing another stream are known as filters and can be connected in pipelines in a manner analogous to function composition. Filters may operate on one item of a stream at a time or may base an item of output on multiple items of input such as a moving average.