1. (v) to hose or damage, generally by code not intended to do so. "My foo function was munging the stack, screwing everything up."

2. (v) To process data. "I wrote some code to munge the database looking for obviously bogus entries."

Also explicitly refers to mangling your e-mail address so that usenet posts do not contain a valid e-mail address for spammers to use.

Responses which are to be e-mailed back to you then require manual intelligent intervention by the sender, to de-munge it.

For example, changing the 'sender' in Netscape to JohnSmith@NOTAREALHOST.com, and placing a note in your signature to replace NOTAREALHOST with theRealHost.
mung = M = Murphy's Law

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 reports `munge' as an archaic verb meaning "to wipe (a person's nose)".

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.