Data Transformation
Mapping data relies on data transformation.
Data transformation is the process of creating a correspondence between records and fields of a source schema to (often different) records and fields in a destination schema. An example of data transformation is to map shipping and billing address information from a purchase order to an invoice. This is the most basic type of mapping. Data transformation can also apply to operations such as:
Averaging data from a looping record and sending the output to a single field in the destination schema.
Converting character data to its ASCII format.
Adding or subtracting data from one or more records and putting the result in a single field in the destination schema.
If you want to translate data from one format to another, you would use a pipeline. This can be helpful in solving enterprise application integration problems by translating a given type of message into alternative formats required by existing systems but cannot be done using a map.