Data manipulation is the process of altering data from a less useful state to a more useful state.
Data manipulation is the process of taking data from either a source or format that isn't easy to read or search into a format or data storage solution that can be quickly read and/or searched. For example, a log's output could be split into rows of a database to make it easier to pull out just the entries that pertain to a situation, or simply reordered to make locating entries based on the ordered field easier. Data manipulation can make data mining easier.
The process of taking raw data and parsing, filtering, extracting, organizing, combining, cleaning or otherwise converting it into a consistent usable form for further processing or input to an algorithm or system.
