What Is Data Munging?

Data munging means taking data that's stored in one format and changing it into another format. The term "data munging" has an ironically mixed etymological origin. The following definition is taken from version 4.3.0 of the Jargon file:^[1]

^[1] See http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/munge.html.Used with permission. Available in print, as The New Hacker's Dictionary, edited by Eric S. Raymond, 3^rd ed. (MIT Press, 1996), http://www-mitpress.mit.edu.

munge /muhnj/ vt.

1. [derogatory] To imperfectly transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data structure or the whole program. 3. To modify data in some way the speaker doesn't need to go into right now or cannot describe succinctly (compare mumble). 4. To add spamblock to an email address.

This term is often confused with mung, which probably was derived from it. However, it also appears the word `munge' was in common use in Scotland in the 1940s, and in Yorkshire in the 1950s, as a verb, meaning to munch up into a masticated mess, and as a noun, meaning the result of munging something up (the parallel with the kluge/kludge pair is amusing). The OED<sup>[2]</sup> reports `munge' as an archaic verb meaning "to wipe (a person's nose)".

^[2] Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.oed.com