Analysis: Parsing HTML token streams

Parser: an algorithm (or a programme based on an algorithm)

• for analysing token streams into hierarchically arranged token groups, operationalising a function with the following components:
• a grammar, including
• syntax rules and
• a lexicon, containing:
  • a definition and list of special tokens (in HTML: tags)
  • a definition of atomic tokens
  • a list of complex elements (text objects)

The parser defines an interpretation function which maps the token stream into an HTML document structure:

For the enthusiasts ...
In general, HTML can be defined formally as a context-free (Chomsky Type 2) language, and a can be represented as a tree.