Input (computer science)
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In computer science, input (used as a verb) refers to the physical or automated act of adding data to a system. Used as a noun, input means and refers to the actual data itself. Once data is input, it is available for the computer program or application to act upon or use to produce a desired outcome. For example, a user inputs certain data into a calculator and the calculator processes the data to reach the desired result.
Input can be provided to systems through a wide variety of devices called "input devices", such as:
Some inner parts of the computer may also be considered input components to the other components, like the power-on button of a computer is an input component for the processor or the power supply, because it takes user input and sends it to other components for further processing.
In many computer languages the keyword "input" is used as a special keyword or function, such as in Visual Basic or Python. The command "input" is used to give the machine the data it has to process.