Ending tuple processing in a stream-based computing application

A computer program product for processing a stream of tuples, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code comprising computer readable program code configured to:

• receive two or more tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements operating on one or more computer processors, each processing element having one or more stream operators;
• add time metadata to a parent tuple at a first stream operator;
• determine a first time metric for a first child tuple of the parent tuple at a second stream operator, the first time metric being determined, at least in part, from the time metadata, the second stream operator receiving the first child tuple from the first stream operator;
• transmit a second child tuple of the parent tuple from the second stream operator to a third stream operator if the time metric is inside a time limit;
• and
• end processing of the first child tuple if the time metric is outside of the time limit.