Abstract Syntax TreeEdit

An Abstract Syntax Tree or AST is an hierarchical representation produced by a parser when recognizing a document. The structure of the tree itself encodes the relationship between the nodes: for example, the expression a = b might be represented as an "assignment node" whose children are "a" and "b"; the "=" symbol itself need not be stored in the tree because the assignment node itself embodies the relationship between "a" and "b".

See also

• Wikipedia article on Abstract Syntax Trees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree