Parsing refers to the splitting of larger data packages into machine-readable parts. Before mobile apps or computer programs can be installed, special parsers first need to take apart the respective data package into small information components in order to derive instructions for the processor. That’s because data packages themselves are completely unintelligible for operating systems. If an operating system like Android isn’t explicitly told instructions on how to handle a package, it can’t do anything with the data. After the parsers have broken down the packages into comprehensible parts, they analyze the individual pieces of information and assign them meanings. You may think of parsing as a computer’s process of understanding. Here’s a practical example:
If a computer is given the formula 31 x 53 + (2∏), it won’t have any idea how to solve it. To work out which operations need to be performed, parsing is first used to determine the individual components of the equation:
It’s now much easier to assign meaning to the various components. The parser is thereby able to determine the structure of the equation and consequently its meaning, allowing the process to understand that “x” and “+” concern mathematical operators, for example.
The parsing processes applied by the Android operating system are similar, but much more complex when a user has downloaded a data package and wishes to install it. What exactly happens then and why might parsing errors occur?