JuliaCon 2020 (times are in UTC)

Creating an XML parser from scratch
07-31, 19:10–19:20 (UTC), Purple Track

By utilizing channels and coroutines in Julia we can create a simple lexer and parser quickly in Julia. In this example we will be building an XML parser from scratch. Focus is on simplicity rather than performance.


Many Julia XML packages wrap complex C++ parsers. This create annoying dependencies and are hard to debug. However Julia is a very nice language to hand code lexers and parsers from scratch. Here we will show how surprisingly easy it is to create a parser for XML and Apple's PList format. We will utilize channels and coroutines to simplify our design.

Erik has been programming in a variety of programming languages for the last two decades, primarily C/C++, Objective-C and Swift but has become a big fan of Julia and is currently doing Julia training videos and educational material.

He has spent many years in the Norwegian oil and gas sector working on 3D modeling software for reservoir modeling and simulation. Some of his interests include UX design, space exploration and colonization, micro controllers and green tech.