Sink (computing)

In computing, a sink, event sink or data sink is a class or function designed to receive incoming events from another object or function. This is commonly implemented in C++ as callbacks. Other Object-oriented languages, such as Java and C#, have built-in support for sinks by allowing events to be fired to delegate functions.

Due to lack of formal definition, a sink is often misconstrued with a gateway which is a similar construct but the latter is usually either an end-point or allows bi-direction communication between dissimilar systems, as opposed to just an event input point. This is often seen in C++ and hardware-related programming, thus the choice of nomenclature by a developer usually depends on whether the agent acting on a sink is a producer or consumer of the sink content.

The word sink has been used for both input and output in the industry. Mobile sink is proposed to save sensor energy for multihop communication in transferring data to a base station (sink) in wireless sensor networks.

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