marshaling

Verb

marshal (third-person singular simple present marshals, present participle (US) marshaling or (UK) marshalling, simple past and past participle (US) marshaled or (UK) marshalled)

1. To arrange (troops, etc.) in line for inspection or a parade.
   • Nothing could be more business-like than the construction of the stout dams, and nothing more gently rural than the limpid lakes, with the grand old forest trees marshalled round their margins like a veteran army that had marched down to drink, only to be stricken motionless at the water’s edge.1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad
2. (broadly) To arrange (facts, etc.) in some methodical order.
   • Within a blue garter inscribed "Great Northern Railway Ireland" is a shield, on which are marshalled the arms of the principal towns in the company's area. The shield is divided quarterly with the arms of Dublin in the first quarter, Londonderry in the second quarter, Enniskillen in the third, and...1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, pages 476-477
3. To ceremoniously guide, conduct or usher.
   • Our conquering ſwords ſhal marſhal vs the way
     UUe vſe to martch vpon the ſlaughtered foe:
     Trampling their bowels with our horſes hoofes: […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
4. To gather data for transmission.
5. (transitive) To serialize an object into a marshalled state represented by a sequence of bytes that can later be converted back into an object with equivalent properties.

   Synonyms:

   serialize, encode

See all 12 meanings of marshal

Noun

marshalling (countable and uncountable, plural marshallings)

1. The process of transforming the memory representation of an object to a data format suitable for storage or transmission, which is typically used when data must be moved between different parts of a computer program, or from one program to another.
2. The arrangement of an escutcheon to exhibit the alliances of the owner.
3. The sorting of rolling stock in a marshalling yard.
   • It is the first British yard in which every activity of hump marshalling, except for the driving of the hump locomotive and the uncoupling and coupling of wagons, is fully automatic or drastically simplified by modern aids.1960 June, “Talking of trains: The new Margam yard”, in Trains Illustrated, page 323