Editing Mung (computer term) (section)

{{Short description|Computer jargon}}

'''Mung''' or '''munge''' is [[computer]] [[jargon]] for a series of potentially destructive or irrevocable changes to a piece of data or a file.<ref name=jargon>{{cite web|last1=Raymond |first1=Eric S. |title=The Jargon File, version 4.4.8 |url=http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/mung.html |website=catb.org |accessdate=15 June 2015 |url-status=unfit |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150615165058/http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/mung.html |archivedate=June 15, 2015 }}</ref> It is sometimes used for vague data transformation steps that are not yet clear to the speaker.<ref name="perl">{{cite book|last1=Cross|first1=David|title=Data Munging with Perl|date=2001|publisher=Manning|location=Greenwich, CT|page=4}}</ref> Common munging operations include removing punctuation or HTML tags, data parsing, filtering, and transformation.<ref name="perl"></ref>

The term was coined in 1958 in the [[Tech Model Railroad Club]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]].<ref name="jargon"></ref> In 1960 the [[backronym]] "Mash Until No Good" was created to describe Mung, and by 1976 it was revised to "Mung Until No Good", making it one of the first [[recursive acronym]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=12 August 1976|title=Jargon File, version 1.0.0.01|url=http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-1.0.0.01.dos.txt|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190223225535/http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-1.0.0.01.dos.txt|archive-date=23 February 2019|access-date=4 February 2021|website=[[Jargon File]]}}</ref> It lived on as a recursive command in the editing language [[Text Editor and Corrector|TECO]].<ref name="os8">{{cite web|last1=Gesswein |first1=David |title=OS/8 Help File |url=http://www.pdp8.net/os/os8/os8_cmd.shtml |accessdate=15 June 2015 |url-status=unfit |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150615181221/http://www.pdp8.net/os/os8/os8_cmd.shtml |archivedate=June 15, 2015 }}</ref>

Munging may also describe the constructive operation of tying together systems and interfaces that were not specifically designed to interoperate (also called 'duct-taping').  Munging can also describe the processing or filtering of raw data into another form.<ref name="perl"></ref>

As the "no good" part of the acronym implies, munging often involves irrevocable destruction of data.<ref name="jargon"></ref>