This talk was recorded at NDC TechTown in Kongsberg, Norway. #ndctechtown #ndcconferences #developer #softwaredeveloper    

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Parsers are everywhere, either explicitly written by you or implicitly used in a tool you use. Parsers are the things that verifies if some input is well-formed, and allows you to extract structured data from it.

If you've ever used a regex, a programming language, markup language or even a data format, there has most likely been a parser involved. Maybe even a parser generator!

In this session, we'll be exploring the process of parsing. We'll start from scratch with the basics and expand our knowledge. Armed with some fundamentals, we'll look at real-world applications like regexes and programming languages and show how the different types of parsers are suited for different tasks.

NDC Conferences

A high-level introduction to parsing that explains what parsers are, how they work, and why they matter. Covers the fundamentals of formal languages (regular and context-free), grammars, and parsing algorithms. Demonstrates both top-down and bottom-up parsing approaches, finite state machines for regular expressions, and table-driven parsing for context-free languages. Discusses practical applications including syntax highlighting, code formatting, and developer tooling, while acknowledging trade-offs between parser generators and hand-written parsers.

A bird's eye view of a parser - Joakim Lier - NDC TechTown 2025