Breaking down linguistic data into working components such as lexemes or phrases.

An SGML parser is a computer application that breaks down an SGML-coded document into a series of logical elements and checks that these elements conform to the model defined in the associated document type declaration. When parsing a document, the SGML parser: Checks each new character to see if it is part of a general delimiter string that identifies the start of a piece of markup. Checks whether or not the character is a short reference delimiter that needs to be expanded. Checks if the character is a separator character that should be ignored. Identifies the various markup tags, identifying any entities that need to be expanded or recalled from external sources. Checks if identified markup tags are valid according to the declared model.

When a computer program examines a set of values, and breaks it into fields, words or commands based on some separator. A spell checker program parses the words to check by looking for spaces and punctuation.

Breaking down an observation into its most elementary parts.

The process of checking an SGML formatted document to ensure it has met all the rules of both SGML and the DTD that is being used. Technically, a document is not considered to be SGML until it has been successfully parsed, as defined by the ISO Standard for SGML.

A term that describes the interpreting a document, translating it into a different format, and breaking it up into smaller, relevant pieces.