Toward a Generic and Concurrency-Aware Pipes & Filters Framework

The Pipes-and-Filters design pattern is a well-known pattern to organize and execute components with sequential dependencies. The pattern is therefore often used to perform several tasks consecutively on large data streams, e.g., during image processing or dynamic analyses. In contrast to the pattern’s familiarity and application, almost each common programming language lacks of flexible, feature-rich, fast, and concurrency-aware Pipes-and-Filters frameworks. So far, it is common practice that most developers write their own implementation tailored to their specific use cases and demands hampering any effective re-use. In this paper, we discuss Pipes-and-Filters architectures of several Java-based applications and point out their drawbacks concerning their applicability and efficiency. Moreover, we propose a generic and concurrency-aware Pipes-and-Filters framework and provide a reference implementation for Java called TeeTime.