A discrete signal or discrete-time signal is a time series consisting of a sequence of quantities.
Unlike a continuous-time signal, a discrete-time signal is not a function of a continuous argument; however, it may have been obtained by sampling from a continuous-time signal. When a discrete-time signal is obtained by sampling a sequence at uniformly spaced times, it has an associated sampling rate.
Discrete-time signals may have several origins, but can usually be classified into one of two groups: