5 User’s Guide

This user’s guide is an in‐depth introduction to parsing with FParsec. It explains how Parser functions work, covers the most important parser combinators in detail, explains how you can customize error messages, and discusses some important practical aspects of parser writing, such as debugging and performance optimizations.

The aim of this user’s guide is to prepare you for writing “real world” parser applications with FParsec. It doesn’t try to cover every feature of the library, but focuses on covering the core concepts such that you can gain a deep understanding of the library design.

Although there is some overlap between the tutorial and this user’s guide, it’s probably a good idea to read the tutorial first, since it will give you a quick overview of the library that will later help you put things into perspective. You might also want to experiment with some small parsers before you start reading the user’s guide, or maybe in parallel to reading it, so that it becomes easier for you to relate the dry technical discussions to exciting practical applications ☺

The first seven chapters of this user’s guide build on each other. The remaining chapters are rather independent and can be read in any order.