what is "parse"?

[BadBoy]

what is "parse"? I am having troubles

[DeathSpiral]

parse (pärs)
v. parsed, pars·ing, pars·es
v. tr.

1. To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.
2. To describe (a word) by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence.
3. 1. To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components: “What are we missing by parsing the behavior of chimpanzees into the conventional categories recognized largely from our own behavior?” (Stephen Jay Gould).
   2. To make sense of; comprehend: I simply couldn't parse what you just said.
4. Computer Science. To analyze or separate (input, for example) into more easily processed components.

v. intr.

To admit of being parsed: sentences that do not parse easily.

[Probably from Middle English pars, part of speech, from Latin pars (rtinis), part (of speech). See per-2 in Indo-European Roots.]parser n.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Erm, yeah, so I guess I'm feeling a little sarcastic...

[Truespirit]

The parser checks the syntax of your script to ensure that it can actually understand what you are trying to get each command to do.

Every language has a set syntax - a list of rules for its contruction is you will. (Try looking up yacc and lex on the internet for examples of computer language syntax parsers for example...).

If you are getting parse errors, then it is trying to tell you that what you have written does not make syntactical sense. Therefore it has no way to proceed in attempting to run your macro.

You don't mention the wording returned to you and personally I've never had a parse error with scripts in MQ so I wouldn't know, but quite often computer language tools will give you a line where they lose syntax integrity. I would suggest if it does give you this information that you read back from that line in order to figure out what you have done wrong.

Truespirit

[drastic ape]

Usually a "parse" error is something really simple. Something like "/depay 0" insteade of "/delay 0" will cause an error and you'll see something similar to "couldn't parse /depay 0". Sometimes it's a sub that isn't spelled the same as where it's called. I'm very sloppy at coding and I run into this crap enough. It's not usually anything other than a bad keystroke on the part of whoever wrote/changed the maco.
It can also be something that MQ has been told to find in the script but isn't there. Basically just a bug for you to squish.