Pipeline

A pipeline may refer to any of the following:

1. In computers, a pipeline or data pipeline is multiple processes where the output of one process is "piped" to the next process's input.

Pipelines on the command line

Using a computer's CLI (command-line interface), you can create a pipeline using the pipe symbol (the vertical bar, "|"). The command before a pipe symbol sends its output as input to the command after the pipe symbol. Multiple commands can be piped together.

For example, in the Windows command line, you can pipe the dir command's output as input to the findstr command, which filters lines of text for the specified substring. The following command outputs a directory listing to findstr, and findstr shows only the lines that contain the substring "win":

C:\Windows> dir | findstr win

 12/07/2019  05:12 AM              92  win.ini
 12/07/2019  05:10 AM          11,776  winhlp32.exe

You can extend the pipeline by adding more commands. For example, you could filter the directory in two stages by piping the output of findstr to a second findstr command. The following example shows only the lines of the directory listing that contain both "win" and "32":

C:\Windows> dir | findstr win | findstr 32

 12/07/2019  05:10 AM          11,776  winhlp32.exe

2. In a CPU (central processing unit), a pipeline refers to an instruction pipeline.

3. A graphics pipeline is a sequence of steps used to render 3D objects to a 2D image in computer graphics. A standard 3D graphics pipeline calculates visible geometry, maps textures, applies lights and shaders, and calculates the projection according to the virtual camera settings.

CPU terms, Instruction set, Pipeline flush, Programming terms, Script, Shell