The context method stores information that needs to persist across method calls and that needs to be restricted to a specific Perl manipulator.

For example, you might use this method to store the number of records processed, a key used for lookups, and so forth. This method is useful when you have multiple Perl manipulators that each store information, such the number of records or a particular key, and that information must not be shared among them. The information stored by the context method is not global— each Perl manipulator in a pipeline has its own context.