1. A method for pipelined data processing of a data item in a single tasking environment, the data item comprising a header and at least one data set, the method comprising the steps of: running a host application on a processor; instantiating a plurality of data processing tasks to form a pipeline of linked tasks, each data processing task being an instantiation of a library function, each data processing task controlling the processor to perform data processing, each data processing task comprising: a header channel; at least one data processing channel, and at least one link to at least one of another data processing task and the host application; and invoking the pipeline with the host application to cause the data processing tasks to process the at least one data set of the data item based on the header of the data item.