martian = M = math-out

massage vt.

[common] Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of a data set into a different form, esp. transformations that do not lose information. Connotes less pain than munch or crunch. "He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF format." Compare slurp.

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