[thelist] Browser parsing

rudy r937 at interlog.com
Thu Mar 15 06:57:46 CST 2001


> I'm in the process of creating some web tutorials and wondered
> anyone could furnish me with a detailed explanation of what the
> term 'Parsing' means in relation to the web.

hi mark

parsing refers to the analysis of the structure of the page

at least, that's my understanding  ;o)

remember parsing in english class in school?

    sentence ::= [noun phrase] [verb phrase]
    noun phrase ::=  [modifying clause] [adjectives] noun
    etc.   (you can tell i'm making this up)

html is parsed in a similar fashion -- the page consists of a head and a
body, the head contains title, metas, and scripts, the body contains....
well, you get the picture


one topic you may want to include in your tutorial is validation

go to http://validator.w3.org and you will see there is an option to show
the "parse tree" for the page being validated

tell your students to try it on a few pages and look at the parse tree that
their pages generate


rudy.ca





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