In computer programming, a parser combinator is a higher-order function that accepts several parsers as input and returns a new parser as its output. In this context, a parser is a function accepting strings as input and returning some structure as output, typically a parse tree or a set of indices representing locations in the string where parsing stopped successfully. Parser combinators enable a recursive descent parsing strategy that facilitates modular piecewise construction and testing. This parsing technique is called combinatory parsing.