Disassembler
A disassembler is an atomic adapter.
Disassemblers accept granules via their input connection.
A disassembler will normally pass through all granules it receives.
It will also break some of the input granules down into smaller granules, and it will 'inject' these additional granules into the granule stream.
The smaller granules are injected before the larger input granule from which they have been extracted.
Granules that are of no interest to the disassembler are normally passed through unmodified.
For example, when a disassembler breaks apart a 'paragraph' granule into a series of 'word' granules, the output of the disassembler will typically consist of a stream of word granules, followed by the original paragraph granule from which the word granules were extracted.
An assembler further down the track will often mostly ignore such paragraph granule as far as its contents go. Instead it will collect the word granules, and wait for the paragraph granule solely as a terminating trigger to signify the series of word granules is complete.
An example input with three granules could look like this:
Para: this is a paragraph Para: this is another paragraph TextFrame: pos (10, 20), width 20, height 80
A paragraph disassembler might convert this input into the following output:
Word: this Word: is Word: a Word: paragraph Para: this is a paragraph Word: this Word: is Word: another Word: paragraph Para: this is another paragraph TextFrame: pos (10, 20), width 20, height 80
In other words: under normal circumstances, a disassembler will only add to the data flow. It won't take granules away.