Patent ID: 8266181

Claim:
A method of processing data in a pipelined processing system, comprising: preprocessing a plurality of records, comprising: for each record of the plurality of records: determining whether the record is a last record in a group, and upon determining the record is the last record in the group, setting a key-break flag for the record, wherein the key-break flag designates the record as the last record in the group; reading, in a first stage of the pipelined processing system, a first record from the plurality of records; determining, in a second stage of the pipelined processing system, whether the key-break flag has been set for the first record, indicating that the first record is the last record in the group; and upon determining that the key-break flag is set, performing, in the second stage of the pipelined processing system, a transformation operation on the first record, to create a transformed record, wherein the step of determining whether the record is the last record in a group further comprises: reading a first record, belonging to a first group, and a second record, belonging to a second group, from the plurality of records; and determining whether the first group and the second group are identical, wherein the first record is the last record in the first group if the first group and the second group are different.