Parse Tree

Definitions

1. A tree data structure that represents the syntactic structure of source code (or any input) according to a formal grammar, where internal nodes correspond to grammar rules and leaf nodes correspond to tokens. Also called a concrete syntax tree (CST), it preserves every syntactic detail including parentheses and whitespace, unlike an abstract syntax tree which omits redundant structure.

   In plain English: A tree-shaped diagram showing how a piece of code breaks down into its grammatical parts, like sentence diagramming for programming.

   Example: "The IDE's syntax highlighter walks the parse tree to colorize keywords, strings, and comments without needing to understand semantics."

Related Terms

• Formal Grammar
• Lookahead
• Loop Unrolling
• Object File
• Parser Combinator
• Parser Generator
• Stack Machine
• Undefined Behavior
• Custom Parser