Text Parsing
Text parsing is the process of analyzing and interpreting structured or unstructured text data to extract meaningful information, such as tokens, syntax, or semantic elements. It involves techniques like lexical analysis (tokenization), syntactic parsing (parsing grammar), and semantic analysis to convert raw text into a structured format for further processing. This concept is fundamental in fields like natural language processing, data extraction, and compiler design.
Developers should learn text parsing when working with data processing applications, such as log file analysis, web scraping, or building compilers and interpreters, as it enables automated extraction and manipulation of text-based information. It is essential for tasks like parsing configuration files, handling user input in command-line tools, or processing documents in formats like JSON, XML, or CSV to transform data into usable formats for analysis or storage.