&gt; Veering a bit offtopic, but does anyone have any pointers to important recent work on parsing?<p>Parser combinators are a relatively modern topic in parsing. First research into the topic was made in the late 1980s, but parser combinators became popular after Parsec [0], a practical implementation of parser combinators in Haskell. These ideas have been borrowed to many different implementations in different languages since then.<p>[0] Daan Leijen: &quot;Parsec, a fast combinator parser&quot;, 2001  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;research.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;um&#x2F;people&#x2F;daan&#x2F;download&#x2F;parsec&#x2F;parsec.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;research.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;um&#x2F;people&#x2F;daan&#x2F;download&#x2F;...</a>