Context (computing)

In computer science, a task context is the minimal set of data used by a task (which may be a process or thread) that must be saved to allow a task interruption at a given date, and a continuation of this task at the point it has been interrupted and at an arbitrary future date. The concept of context assumes significance in the case of interruptible tasks, wherein upon being interrupted the processor saves the context and proceeds to serve the Interrupt service routine. Thus, the smaller the context is, the smaller the latency is.