An area of memory set aside for temporary storage of data. Often, the data remains in the buffer until some external event finishes. A buffer can compensate for the differences in transmission or processing speed between two devices or between a computer and a peripheral device, such as a printer.
Buffers are implemented in a variety of ways, including first-in-first-out (FIFO) used for pipes and last-in-last-out used for stacks and circular buffers such as event logs.
See also pipe.