Batch mode

Batch processing is the execution of a series of jobs in a program on a computer without manual intervention (non-interactive). Strictly speaking, it is a processing mode: the execution of a series of programs each on a set or "batch" of inputs, rather than a single input (which would instead be a custom job). However, this distinction has largely been lost, and the series of steps in a batch process are often called a "job" or "batch job".

Batch processing has these benefits:

It also has multiple disadvantages, for instance users are unable to terminate a process during execution, and have to wait until execution completes.

The term "batch processing" originates in the traditional classification of methods of production as job production (one-off production), batch production (production of a "batch" of multiple items at once, one stage at a time), and flow production (mass production, all stages in process at once).

Batch processing dates to the late 19th century, in the processing of data stored on decks of punch card by unit record equipment, specifically the tabulating machine by Herman Hollerith, used for the 1890 United States Census. This was the earliest use of a machine-readable medium for data, rather than for control (as in Jacquard looms; today control corresponds to code), and thus the earliest processing of machine-read data was batch processing. Each card stored a separate record of data with different fields: cards were processed by the machine one by one, all in the same way, as a batch. Batch processing continued to be the dominant processing mode on mainframe computers from the earliest days of electronic computing in the 1950s.

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