Hybrid structure: A scheme for handling data structures in a data flow environment

Abstract

The asynchronous nature of data flow model of computation allows the exploitation of maximum inherent parallelism in many application programs. However, before data flow model of computation can become a viable alternative to control flow model of computation, one has to find practical solutions to some major problems such as efficient handling of data structures. This article introduces a new model for handling data structures in a data flow environment. The proposed model combines both aspects of copying and sharing to optimize the storage and processing overhead incurred during the operations on data structures. In addition, using simulation, a comparative analysis of our model against other data structure models proposed in literature is presented.