Batch Processing

Batch processing is execution of a series of programs jobs on a computer without human interaction.

Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without human interaction, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters. This is in contrast to "online" or interactive programs which prompt the user for such input.

It allows sharing of computer resources among many users and programs, it shifts the time of job processing to when the computing resources are less busy, It avoids idling the computing resources with minute-by-minute human interaction and supervision, By keeping high overall rate of utilization, it better amortizes the cost of a computer, especially an expensive one.

Batch processing has grown beyond its mainframe origins, and is now frequently used in UNIX environments and Microsoft Windows too. UNIX systems uses shells and other scripting languages In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being sequentially executed by a computer system that has the ability to run several computer programs concurrently.

. DOS systems uses batch files powered by COMMAND.COM, Microsoft Windows has cmd.exe, Windows Script Host and advanced Windows PowerShell

Batch processing is also used for converting a number of computer files from one format to another. This is to make files portable and versatile especially for proprietary and legacy files where viewers are not easy to come by.