Homomorphic Mapping

From: TranslatorPattern

ho·mo·mor·phism

Pronunciation: "hO-mə-'mor-"fi-zəm, "hä- Function: noun; Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary; Date: 1935

: a mapping of a mathematical set (as a group, ring, or vector space) into or onto another set or itself in such a way that the result obtained by applying the operations to elements of the first set is mapped onto the result obtained by applying the corresponding operations to their respective images in the second set

- ho·mo·mor·phic /-fik/ adjective

From Websters online dictionary http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

A homomorphic mapping is one that preserves the structure of the originating construct in the resulting construct. An example is "compile(assign(lhs, rhs))=store(compile(lhs), compile(rhs))" or in general "func(op(a, b)) = op*(func(a), func(b))", where 'op' is a node in the source language and 'op*' is a node in the target language. Additional flexibility in the mapping can be gained by making each step of the translation polymorphic with respect to the type of the originating node.