Parsing is the process of reading a string and converting it into another data type. It comes up often when a program receives input from the user — in most languages, user input always arrives as text, even if the user typed a number.
Parsing is a specific kind of type conversion. For a broader introduction to converting between types, see Type Conversion.
Parsing a String into an Integer#
The most common case: the user types a number, but the program receives it as text. To use it as a number, you parse it.