<XML> processor that reads an XML document and determines the structure and properties of the data

Note 1 to entry: If the parser goes beyond the XML rules for conformance and validates the document against an XML schema, the parser is said to be a “validating” parser. A generalized XML parser reads XML files and generates a hierarchically structured tree, then hands off data to viewers and other applications for processing.

A validating XML parser also checks the XML syntax and reports errors.