# The Parser Model

The parser model here follows the model in section
[8.2.1](http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/CR-html5-20121217/syntax.html#parsing)
of the HTML5 specification, though we do not assume a networking layer.

[ InputStream ] // Generic support for reading input.
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[ Scanner ] // Breaks down the stream into characters.
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[ Tokenizer ] // Groups characters into syntactic
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[ Tree Builder ] // Organizes units into a tree of objects
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[ DOM Document ] // The final state of the parsed document.


## InputStream

This is an interface with at least two concrete implementations:

- StringInputStream: Reads an HTML5 string.
- FileInputStream: Reads an HTML5 file.

## Scanner

This is a mechanical piece of the parser.

## Tokenizer

This follows section 8.4 of the HTML5 spec. It is (roughly) a recursive
descent parser. (Though there are plenty of optimizations that are less
than purely functional.

## EventHandler and DOMTree

EventHandler is the interface for tree builders. Since not all
implementations will necessarily build trees, we've chosen a more
generic name.

The event handler emits tokens during tokenization.

The DOMTree is an event handler that builds a DOM tree. The output of
the DOMTree builder is a DOMDocument.

## DOMDocument

PHP has a DOMDocument class built-in (technically, it's part of libxml.)
We use that, thus rendering the output of this process compatible with
SimpleXML, QueryPath, and many other XML/HTML processing tools.

For cases where the HTML5 is a fragment of a HTML5 document a
DOMDocumentFragment is returned instead. This is another built-in class.