What is "ad-hoc Parsing"?

Question

I've searched for this term, and can only find a few references, but i've heard it mentioned several times. None of these references seem "authoritative".

Nearest i can tell, "ad-hoc parsing" involves splitting an input into chunks and processing those chunks. Maybe that's correct, i don't know.

Can someone help me find some resources that explains ad-hoc parsing more completely? What's the origin of the term (from academia, etc)? What are some examples of ad-hoc parsing?

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc

When doing something "Ad Hoc" it means you do not follow some theory of doing it, you just devise a singular solution that works for a specific problem in the situation you find yourself in.

In the phrase "Ad hoc parsing" the "Ad hoc" part is just an adjective, there is no general theory of "Ad hoc parsing" and you will find no books/articles about "Ad hoc parsing".