mapping

Pluralmappings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The process or craft of making maps of an area.

   Aerial photography has transformed the mapping of remote regions.

   The expedition's main goal was the mapping of the river's course.

   Similarcartography, charting, surveying

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of map.

   Researchers are mapping the spread of the disease across the region.

   He spent the summer mapping old mining tunnels.

   Note

   Two jobs share this spelling. One is the progressive (researchers are mapping the spread) and the other the gerund (mapping old tunnels took all summer). Most of the verb's uses are transitive: you map a region, or map one thing to another. One use is not, since a thing can simply map, meaning correspond. As a gerund it shades easily into the mapmaking noun.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A function that links every element of one mathematical structure, such as a set, to a unique element of another; a correspondence.

   The mapping assigns each point on the circle to an angle.

   Mathematicians proved that the mapping was one-to-one.

   Similarfunction, correspondence, transformation

   Note

   In mathematics the word is very nearly a synonym for function. Each element of one set or structure is sent to exactly one element of another. Some authors keep mapping for functions between structured spaces and use function for the rest. The verb follows suit, so a mapping maps x to y. Adjectives such as one-to-one sort mappings by how they pair elements.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of assigning a computer to a shared drive or printer port on a network.

   The IT team set up the mapping so staff could open files on the central server.

   After the mapping, the network drive appeared as drive Z on her machine.

   Note

   Network administrators use it for a local shortcut to a remote resource. A drive letter or port on one machine is tied to a shared folder or printer elsewhere, so the remote resource behaves as though it were stored locally. The verb works the same way: you map a network drive, perhaps to a letter like Z. The noun names either the act or the standing link it leaves behind.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The process of finding where genes are located along a chromosome.

   The mapping of the chromosome revealed several disease-linked genes.

   Advances in mapping let researchers pinpoint genes far more quickly.

   Note

   Geneticists borrowed the cartographer's word, and the metaphor holds. A chromosome is surveyed like a stretch of country, with genes plotted by their positions and by the distances between them. The survey can rest on genetic linkage data or on physical sequencing. In use it often appears as gene mapping or the mapping of a chromosome, a sister to the mapmaker's craft rather than a different word.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The conversion of data types from one type system to another when the two systems are incompatible.

   The framework handles the mapping between database columns and program objects.

   A bug in the mapping caused the dates to load incorrectly.

   Similarconversion, translation

   Note

   Programmers use it for the translation work between two type systems that share no common representation. Most often a database's columns sit on one side and a program's objects on the other. That job is usually handed to a dedicated layer, the object-relational mapper. When the layer gets it wrong, the result is values that load incorrectly, such as dates that come out garbled.

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