Patent ID: 7035996

Claim:
A stream computer, said stream computer comprising: a plurality of interconnected functional units, each of said functional units responsive to a data stream containing data to be operated on by one or more of said functional units; digital logic cooperatively associated with one of said functional units for adding one or more tokens to said data stream presented to said one of said functional units said one or more tokens used to describe a type of data being generated by said one or more functional units, said digital logic reporting said one or more tokens at one of said functional units to a graphical programming environment to generate an error message, said graphical programming environment compatible with human perception, wherein said data and one or more tokens form said data stream, said digital logic reporting the occurrence of said one or more tokens within said data stream to said graphical programming environment, wherein said digital logic reports one or more tokens arriving at one of said functional units, said one or more tokens within said data stream, said digital logic reporting to said graphical programming environment, said one or more tokens present within said data stream, said graphical programming environment compatible with human perception, wherein said programming environment compares said one or more tokens arriving from said digital logic with stored values for said one or more tokens to generate said error message, wherein an error message is generated by said graphical programming environment whenever said comparison between said one or more tokens and said stored values indicates said one or more tokens and said stored values do not match.