A Hybrid Scheme for Processing Data Structures in a Dataflow Environment

Abstract

The asynchronous nature of the dataflow model of computation allows the exploitation of maximum inherent parallelism in many application programs. However, before the dataflow model of computation can become a viable alternative to the control flow model of computation, one has to find practical solutions to some major problems such as efficient handling of data structures. This paper introduces a new model for handling data structures in a dataflow environment. The proposed model combines constant time access capabilities of vectors as well as the flexibility inherent in the concept of pointers. This allows a careful balance between copying and sharing to optimize the storage and processing overhead incurred during the operations on data structures. Using simulation, we present a comparative analysis of our model against other data structure models proposed in literature. © 1992 IEEE