(1) The management of transmission between two devices such as nodes in a network or between the CPU and peripheral devices. It provides notification to the sending device to slow down or speed up data transmission or data transfer due to the receiving device's current ability to keep up with it. Flow control also enables slower-speed devices to communicate with higher-speed ones and vice versa. See xon-xoff.

(2) In programming, the if-then and loop statements that make up the program's logic.