A mechanism is provided for accelerating data exchange language parsing. An input data stream is loaded into a first in, first out (FIFO) memory. A tokenization bit corresponding to a next byte to be read is extracted from a FIFO. A determination is made as to whether the tokenization bit corresponding to the next byte to be read from the FIFO indicates a control character or a non-control character located in an associated FIFO memory location in the FIFO. Responsive to the tokenization bit indicating the control character, the control character that causes a state change in a state machine is processed. Responsive to the tokenization bit indicating the non-control character, a length associated with the tokenized bit is identified and a set of non-control characters that do not cause a state change in the state machine are processed based on the length associated with the tokenized bit.