10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the subset of candidate records is selected when a global optimal cost of the parse is given by min n T n (L).
9. A system for parsing a semi-structured document having a plurality of document lines on which a series of items are listed, the listing of each item spanning one or more document lines, said system comprising: a processor operative to: obtain a plurality of candidate records, each candidate record spanning one or more lines of the document; define a term representing an optimal cost of selecting a number n of candidate records to span the document lines up to a given ending document line i, wherein the defined term T n (i)is given by 
 T n ( i )=min j<l ( T n−1 ( j )+ S ( j,i )) for all i≦L where L is a total number of lines in the document and S(i,j) is a labeling score associated with labeling document lines i through j with candidate records contained therebetween; efficiently evaluate the term over a first range of values for n and a second range of values for i; and select a subset of the plurality of candidate records as a global optimal parse of the document, wherein the subset selected is based on the evaluation of the term.