This specification defines the Document Object Model Core Level 3, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model Core Level 3 builds on the Document Object Model Core Level 2 [DOM Level 2 Core].

What is the Document Object Model?

Editors:: Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C; Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc. (for DOM Level 2); Jonathan Robie, Texcel (for DOM Level 1)

Introduction

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an application programming interface (API) for valid HTML and well-formed XML documents. It defines the logical structure of documents and the way a document is accessed and manipulated. In the DOM specification, the term "document" is used in the broad sense - increasingly, XML is being used as a way of representing many different kinds of information that may be stored in diverse systems, and much of this would traditionally be seen as data rather than as documents. Nevertheless, XML presents this data as documents, and the DOM may be used to manage this data.

With the Document Object Model, programmers can build documents, navigate their structure, and add, modify, or delete elements and content. Anything found in an HTML or XML document can be accessed, changed, deleted, or added using the Document Object Model, with a few exceptions - in particular, the DOM interfaces for the XML internal and external subsets have not yet been specified.

As a W3C specification, one important objective for the Document Object Model is to provide a standard programming interface that can be used in a wide variety of environments and applications. The DOM is designed to be used with any programming language. In order to provide a precise, language-independent specification of the DOM interfaces, we have chosen to define the specifications in Object Management Group (OMG) IDL [OMG IDL], as defined in the CORBA 2.3.1 specification [CORBA]. In addition to the OMG IDL specification, we provide language bindings for Java [Java] and ECMAScript [ECMAScript] (an industry-standard scripting language based on JavaScript [JavaScript] and JScript [JScript]). Because of language binding restrictions, a mapping has to be applied between the OMG IDL and the programming language in used. For example, while the DOM uses IDL attributes in the definition of interfaces, Java does not allow interfaces to contain attributes:

// example 1: removing the first child of an element using ECMAScript
mySecondTrElement.removeChild(mySecondTrElement.firstChild);

// example 2: removing the first child of an element using Java
mySecondTrElement.removeChild(mySecondTrElement.getFirstChild());

Note: OMG IDL is used only as a language-independent and implementation-neutral way to specify interfaces. Various other IDLs could have been used ([COM], [Java IDL], [MIDL], ...). In general, IDLs are designed for specific computing environments. The Document Object Model can be implemented in any computing environment, and does not require the object binding runtimes generally associated with such IDLs.

What the Document Object Model is

The DOM is a programming API for documents. It is based on an object structure that closely resembles the structure of the documents it models. For instance, consider this table, taken from an XHTML document:

<table>
  <tbody> 
    <tr> 
      <td>Shady Grove</td>
      <td>Aeolian</td> 
    </tr> 
    <tr>
      <td>Over the River, Charlie</td>        
      <td>Dorian</td> 
    </tr> 
  </tbody>
</table>

A graphical representation of the DOM of the example table, with whitespaces in element content (often abusively called "ignorable whitespace") removed, is:

Figure: graphical representation of the DOM of the example table [SVG 1.0 version]

An example of DOM manipulation using ECMAScript would be:

// access the tbody element from the table element
var myTbodyElement = myTableElement.firstChild;

// access its second tr element
// The list of children starts at 0 (and not 1).
var mySecondTrElement = myTbodyElement.childNodes[1];

// remove its first td element
mySecondTrElement.removeChild(mySecondTrElement.firstChild);

// change the text content of the remaining td element
mySecondTrElement.firstChild.firstChild.data = "Peter";

In the DOM, documents have a logical structure which is very much like a tree; to be more precise, which is like a "forest" or "grove", which can contain more than one tree. Each document contains zero or one doctype nodes, one document element node, and zero or more comments or processing instructions; the document element serves as the root of the element tree for the document. However, the DOM does not specify that documents must be implemented as a tree or a grove, nor does it specify how the relationships among objects be implemented. The DOM is a logical model that may be implemented in any convenient manner. In this specification, we use the term structure model to describe the tree-like representation of a document. We also use the term "tree" when referring to the arrangement of those information items which can be reached by using "tree-walking" methods; (this does not include attributes). One important property of DOM structure models is structural isomorphism: if any two Document Object Model implementations are used to create a representation of the same document, they will create the same structure model, in accordance with the XML Information Set [XML Information set].

Note: There may be some variations depending on the parser being used to build the DOM. For instance, the DOM may not contain white spaces in element content if the parser discards them.

The name "Document Object Model" was chosen because it is an "object model" in the traditional object oriented design sense: documents are modeled using objects, and the model encompasses not only the structure of a document, but also the behavior of a document and the objects of which it is composed. In other words, the nodes in the above diagram do not represent a data structure, they represent objects, which have functions and identity. As an object model, the DOM identifies:

the interfaces and objects used to represent and manipulate a document
the semantics of these interfaces and objects - including both behavior and attributes
the relationships and collaborations among these interfaces and objects

The structure of SGML documents has traditionally been represented by an abstract data model, not by an object model. In an abstract data model, the model is centered around the data. In object oriented programming languages, the data itself is encapsulated in objects that hide the data, protecting it from direct external manipulation. The functions associated with these objects determine how the objects may be manipulated, and they are part of the object model.

What the Document Object Model is not

This section is designed to give a more precise understanding of the DOM by distinguishing it from other systems that may seem to be like it.

The Document Object Model is not a binary specification. DOM programs written in the same language binding will be source code compatible across platforms, but the DOM does not define any form of binary interoperability.
The Document Object Model is not a way of persisting objects to XML or HTML. Instead of specifying how objects may be represented in XML, the DOM specifies how XML and HTML documents are represented as objects, so that they may be used in object oriented programs.
The Document Object Model is not a set of data structures; it is an object model that specifies interfaces. Although this document contains diagrams showing parent/child relationships, these are logical relationships defined by the programming interfaces, not representations of any particular internal data structures.
The Document Object Model does not define what information in a document is relevant or how information in a document is structured. For XML, this is specified by the XML Information Set [XML Information set]. The DOM is simply an API to this information set.
The Document Object Model, despite its name, is not a competitor to the Component Object Model [COM]. COM, like CORBA, is a language independent way to specify interfaces and objects; the DOM is a set of interfaces and objects designed for managing HTML and XML documents. The DOM may be implemented using language-independent systems like COM or CORBA; it may also be implemented using language-specific bindings like the Java or ECMAScript bindings specified in this document.

Where the Document Object Model came from

The DOM originated as a specification to allow JavaScript scripts and Java programs to be portable among Web browsers. "Dynamic HTML" was the immediate ancestor of the Document Object Model, and it was originally thought of largely in terms of browsers. However, when the DOM Working Group was formed at W3C, it was also joined by vendors in other domains, including HTML or XML editors and document repositories. Several of these vendors had worked with SGML before XML was developed; as a result, the DOM has been influenced by SGML Groves and the HyTime standard. Some of these vendors had also developed their own object models for documents in order to provide an API for SGML/XML editors or document repositories, and these object models have also influenced the DOM.

Entities and the DOM Core

In the fundamental DOM interfaces, there are no objects representing entities. Numeric character references, and references to the pre-defined entities in HTML and XML, are replaced by the single character that makes up the entity's replacement. For example, in:

        <p>This is a dog &amp; a cat</p>

the "&" will be replaced by the character "&", and the text in the P element will form a single continuous sequence of characters. Since numeric character references and pre-defined entities are not recognized as such in CDATA sections, or in the SCRIPT and STYLE elements in HTML, they are not replaced by the single character they appear to refer to. If the example above were enclosed in a CDATA section, the "&" would not be replaced by "&"; neither would the <p> be recognized as a start tag. The representation of general entities, both internal and external, are defined within the extended (XML) interfaces of Document Object Model Core.

Note: When a DOM representation of a document is serialized as XML or HTML text, applications will need to check each character in text data to see if it needs to be escaped using a numeric or pre-defined entity. Failing to do so could result in invalid HTML or XML. Also, implementations should be aware of the fact that serialization into a character encoding ("charset") that does not fully cover ISO 10646 may fail if there are characters in markup or CDATA sections that are not present in the encoding.

DOM Architecture

The DOM specifications provide a set of APIs that forms the DOM API. Each DOM specification defines one or more modules and each module is associated with one feature name. For example, the DOM Core specification (this specification) defines two modules:

The Core module, which contains the fundamental interfaces that must be implemented by all DOM conformant implementations, is associated with the feature name "Core";
The XML module, which contains the interfaces that must be implemented by all conformant XML 1.0 [XML 1.0] (and higher) DOM implementations, is associated with the feature name "XML".

The following representation contains all DOM modules, represented using their feature names, defined along the DOM specifications:

Figure: A view of the DOM Architecture [SVG 1.0 version]

A DOM implementation can then implement one (i.e. only the Core module) or more modules depending on the host application. A Web user agent is very likely to implement the "MouseEvents" module, while a server-side application will have no use of this module and will probably not implement it.

Conformance

This section explains the different levels of conformance to DOM Level 3. DOM Level 3 consists of 16 modules. It is possible to conform to DOM Level 3, or to a DOM Level 3 module.

An implementation is DOM Level 3 conformant if it supports the Core module defined in this document (see Fundamental Interfaces: Core module). An implementation conforms to a DOM Level 3 module if it supports all the interfaces for that module and the associated semantics.

Here is the complete list of DOM Level 3.0 modules and the features used by them. Feature names are case-insensitive.

Core module: defines the feature "Core".
XML module: Defines the feature "XML".
Events module: defines the feature "Events" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
User interface Events module: defines the feature "UIEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Mouse Events module: defines the feature "MouseEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Text Events module: defines the feature "TextEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Keyboard Events module: defines the feature "KeyboardEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Mutation Events module: defines the feature "MutationEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Mutation name Events module: defines the feature "MutationNameEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
HTML Events module: defines the feature "HTMLEvents" in [DOM Level 3 Events].
Load and Save module: defines the feature "LS" in [DOM Level 3 Load and Save].
Asynchronous load module: defines the feature "LS-Async" in [DOM Level 3 Load and Save].
DocumentLS module: defines the feature "DocumentLS" in [DOM Level 3 Load and Save].
ElementLS module: defines the feature "ElementLS" in [DOM Level 3 Load and Save].
Validation module: defines the feature "Validation" in [DOM Level 3 Validation].
XPath module: defines the feature "XPath" in [DOM Level 3 XPath].

A DOM implementation must not return true to the DOMImplementation.hasFeature(feature, version) method of the DOMImplementation interface for that feature unless the implementation conforms to that module. The version number for all features used in DOM Level 3.0 is "3.0".

DOM Interfaces and DOM Implementations

The DOM specifies interfaces which may be used to manage XML or HTML documents. It is important to realize that these interfaces are an abstraction - much like "abstract base classes" in C++, they are a means of specifying a way to access and manipulate an application's internal representation of a document. Interfaces do not imply a particular concrete implementation. Each DOM application is free to maintain documents in any convenient representation, as long as the interfaces shown in this specification are supported. Some DOM implementations will be existing programs that use the DOM interfaces to access software written long before the DOM specification existed. Therefore, the DOM is designed to avoid implementation dependencies; in particular,

Attributes defined in the IDL do not imply concrete objects which must have specific data members - in the language bindings, they are translated to a pair of get()/set() functions, not to a data member. Read-only attributes have only a get() function in the language bindings.
DOM applications may provide additional interfaces and objects not found in this specification and still be considered DOM conformant.
Because we specify interfaces and not the actual objects that are to be created, the DOM cannot know what constructors to call for an implementation. In general, DOM users call the createX() methods on the Document class to create document structures, and DOM implementations create their own internal representations of these structures in their implementations of the createX() functions.

The Level 2 interfaces were extended to provide both Level 2 and Level 3 functionality.

DOM implementations in languages other than Java or ECMAScript may choose bindings that are appropriate and natural for their language and run time environment. For example, some systems may need to create a Document3 class which inherits from a Document class and contains the new methods and attributes.

DOM Level 3 does not specify multithreading mechanisms.

1. Document Object Model Core

Editors:: Arnaud Le Hors, IBM; Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C; Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS (for DOM Level 1); Lauren Wood, SoftQuad, Inc. (for DOM Level 1); Mike Champion, Arbortext and Software AG (for DOM Level 1 from November 20, 1997); Steve Byrne, JavaSoft (for DOM Level 1 until November 19, 1997)

1.1 Overview of the DOM Core Interfaces
1.2 Primitive types
1.3 General considerations
1.4 Fundamental Interfaces: Core module
- DOMException, ExceptionCode, DOMStringList, NameList, DOMImplementationList, DOMImplementationSource, DOMImplementation, DocumentFragment, Document, Node, NodeList, NamedNodeMap, CharacterData, Attr, Element, Text, Comment, TypeInfo, UserDataHandler, DOMError, DOMErrorHandler, DOMLocator, DOMConfiguration
1.5 Extended Interfaces: XML module
- CDATASection, DocumentType, Notation, Entity, EntityReference, ProcessingInstruction

This specification defines a set of objects and interfaces for accessing and manipulating document objects. The functionality specified (the Core functionality) is sufficient to allow software developers and web script authors to access and manipulate parsed HTML [HTML 4.01] and XML [XML 1.0] content inside conforming products. The DOM Core API also allows creation and population of a Document object using only DOM API calls. A solution for loading a Document and saving it persistently is proposed in [DOM Level 3 Load and Save].

1.1 Overview of the DOM Core Interfaces

1.1.1 The DOM Structure Model

The DOM presents documents as a hierarchy of Node objects that also implement other, more specialized interfaces. Some types of nodes may have child nodes of various types, and others are leaf nodes that cannot have anything below them in the document structure. For XML and HTML, the node types, and which node types they may have as children, are as follows:

Document -- Element (maximum of one), ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType (maximum of one)
DocumentFragment -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
DocumentType -- no children
EntityReference -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Element -- Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
Attr -- Text, EntityReference
ProcessingInstruction -- no children
Comment -- no children
Text -- no children
CDATASection -- no children
Entity -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Notation -- no children

The DOM also specifies a NodeList interface to handle ordered lists of Nodes, such as the children of a Node, or the elements returned by the Element.getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName) method, and also a NamedNodeMap interface to handle unordered sets of nodes referenced by their name attribute, such as the attributes of an Element. NodeList and NamedNodeMap objects in the DOM are live; that is, changes to the underlying document structure are reflected in all relevant NodeList and NamedNodeMap objects. For example, if a DOM user gets a NodeList object containing the children of an Element, then subsequently adds more children to that element (or removes children, or modifies them), those changes are automatically reflected in the NodeList, without further action on the user's part. Likewise, changes to a Node in the tree are reflected in all references to that Node in NodeList and NamedNodeMap objects.

Finally, the interfaces Text, Comment, and CDATASection all inherit from the CharacterData interface.

1.1.2 Memory Management

Most of the APIs defined by this specification are interfaces rather than classes. That means that an implementation need only expose methods with the defined names and specified operation, not implement classes that correspond directly to the interfaces. This allows the DOM APIs to be implemented as a thin veneer on top of legacy applications with their own data structures, or on top of newer applications with different class hierarchies. This also means that ordinary constructors (in the Java or C++ sense) cannot be used to create DOM objects, since the underlying objects to be constructed may have little relationship to the DOM interfaces. The conventional solution to this in object-oriented design is to define factory methods that create instances of objects that implement the various interfaces. Objects implementing some interface "X" are created by a "createX()" method on the Document interface; this is because all DOM objects live in the context of a specific Document.

The Core DOM APIs are designed to be compatible with a wide range of languages, including both general-user scripting languages and the more challenging languages used mostly by professional programmers. Thus, the DOM APIs need to operate across a variety of memory management philosophies, from language bindings that do not expose memory management to the user at all, through those (notably Java) that provide explicit constructors but provide an automatic garbage collection mechanism to automatically reclaim unused memory, to those (especially C/C++) that generally require the programmer to explicitly allocate object memory, track where it is used, and explicitly free it for re-use. To ensure a consistent API across these platforms, the DOM does not address memory management issues at all, but instead leaves these for the implementation. Neither of the explicit language bindings defined by the DOM API (for ECMAScript and Java) require any memory management methods, but DOM bindings for other languages (especially C or C++) may require such support. These extensions will be the responsibility of those adapting the DOM API to a specific language, not the DOM Working Group.

1.1.3 Naming Conventions

While it would be nice to have attribute and method names that are short, informative, internally consistent, and familiar to users of similar APIs, the names also should not clash with the names in legacy APIs supported by DOM implementations. Furthermore, both OMG IDL [OMG IDL] and ECMAScript [ECMAScript] have significant limitations in their ability to disambiguate names from different namespaces that make it difficult to avoid naming conflicts with short, familiar names. So, DOM names tend to be long and descriptive in order to be unique across all environments.

The Working Group has also attempted to be internally consistent in its use of various terms, even though these may not be common distinctions in other APIs. For example, the DOM API uses the method name "remove" when the method changes the structural model, and the method name "delete" when the method gets rid of something inside the structure model. The thing that is deleted is not returned. The thing that is removed may be returned, when it makes sense to return it.

1.1.4 Inheritance vs. Flattened Views of the API

The DOM Core APIs present two somewhat different sets of interfaces to an XML/HTML document: one presenting an "object oriented" approach with a hierarchy of inheritance, and a "simplified" view that allows all manipulation to be done via the Node interface without requiring casts (in Java and other C-like languages) or query interface calls in COM environments. These operations are fairly expensive in Java and COM, and the DOM may be used in performance-critical environments, so we allow significant functionality using just the Node interface. Because many other users will find the inheritance hierarchy easier to understand than the "everything is a Node" approach to the DOM, we also support the full higher-level interfaces for those who prefer a more object-oriented API.

In practice, this means that there is a certain amount of redundancy in the API. The Working Group considers the "inheritance" approach the primary view of the API, and the full set of functionality on Node to be "extra" functionality that users may employ, but that does not eliminate the need for methods on other interfaces that an object-oriented analysis would dictate. (Of course, when the O-O analysis yields an attribute or method that is identical to one on the Node interface, we don't specify a completely redundant one.) Thus, even though there is a generic Node.nodeName attribute on the Node interface, there is still a Element.tagName attribute on the Element interface; these two attributes must contain the same value, but the it is worthwhile to support both, given the different constituencies the DOM API must satisfy.

1.2 Primitive types

To ensure interoperability, this specification specifies the following primitive types used in various DOM modules. Even though the DOM uses the primitive types in the interfaces, bindings may use different types and normative bindings are only given for Java and ECMAScript in this specification.

1.2.1 The `DOMString` type

The DOMString type is used to store [Unicode] characters as a code unit string as defined in section 3.4 of [CharModel]. Applications must encode the characters using UTF-16 as defined in [Unicode] and Amendment 1 of [ISO/IEC 10646].

Type Definition DOMString

A DOMString is a sequence of 16-bit units.

IDL Definition

valuetype DOMString sequence<unsigned short>;

The UTF-16 encoding was chosen because of its widespread industry practice. Note that for both HTML and XML, the document character set (and therefore the notation of numeric character references) is based on UCS [ISO/IEC 10646]. A single numeric character reference in a source document may therefore in some cases correspond to two 16-bit units in a DOMString (a high surrogate and a low surrogate). For issues related to string comparisons, refer to String comparisons in the DOM.

For Java and ECMAScript, DOMString is bound to the String type because both languages also use UTF-16 as their encoding.

Note: As of August 2000, the OMG IDL specification ([OMG IDL]) included a wstring type. However, that definition did not meet the interoperability criteria of the DOM API since it relied on negotiation to decide the width and encoding of a character.

1.2.2 The `DOMTimeStamp` type

The DOMTimeStamp type is used to store an absolute or relative time.

Type Definition DOMTimeStamp

A DOMTimeStamp represents a number of milliseconds.

IDL Definition

typedef unsigned long long DOMTimeStamp;

For Java, DOMTimeStamp is bound to the long type. For ECMAScript, DOMTimeStamp is bound to the Date type because the range of the integer type is too small.

1.2.3 The `DOMUserData` type

The DOMUserData type is used to store an application data.

Type Definition DOMUserData

A DOMUserData represents a reference to an application data.

IDL Definition

typedef any DOMUserData;

For Java, DOMUserData is bound to the Object type. For ECMAScript, DOMUserData is bound to any type.

1.2.4 The `DOMObject` type

The DOMUserData type is used to store an application object.

Type Definition DOMObject

A DOMObject represents a reference to an application object.

IDL Definition

typedef Object DOMObject;

For Java and ECMAScript, DOMObject is bound to the Object type.

1.3 General considerations

1.3.1 String comparisons in the DOM

The DOM has many interfaces that imply string matching. For XML, string comparisons are case-sensitive and performed with a binary comparison of the 16-bit units of the DOMStrings. However, for case-insensitive markup languages, such as HTML 4.01 or earlier, these comparisons are case-insensitive where appropriate.

Note that HTML processors often perform specific case normalizations (canonicalization) of the markup before the DOM structures are built. This is typically using uppercase for element names and lowercase for attribute names. For this reason, applications should also compare element and attribute names returned by the DOM implementation in a case-insensitive manner.

The character normalization, as defined in [CharModel], is assumed to happen at serialization time. The DOM Level 3 Load and Save module [DOM Level 3 Load and Save] provides a serialization mechanism (see the DOMSerializer interface, section 2.3.1) and uses the "normalize-characters" and "check-character-normalization" to assure that text is fully-normalized (see section 4.2.3 in [CharModel]. Other serialization mechanisms built on top of the DOM Level 3 Core also have to assure that text is fully-normalized.

1.3.2 DOM URIs

The DOM specification relies on DOMString values as resource identifiers, such that the following conditions are met:

A complete identifier absolutely identifies a resource on the web;
Simple string equality establishes equality of complete resource identifiers, and no other equivalence of resource identifiers is considered significant to the DOM specification;
An incomplete identifier is easily detected and completed relative to a complete identifier;
Retrieval of content of a resource may be accomplished where required.

Within the DOM specifications, these identifiers are called URIs, "Universal Resource Identifiers", but this is meant abstractly. The DOM implementation does not necessarily process its URIs according to the URI specification [IETF RFC 2396].

Generally the particular form of these identifiers must be ignored.

When is not possible to completely ignore the type of any DOM URI, either because an incomplete identifier must be completed or because content must be retrieved, the DOM implementation must at least support types appropriate to the content being processed. Whereas [HTML 4.01], [XML 1.0], and associated namespace specification [XML Namespaces] rely on [IETF RFC 2396], other specifications such as namespaces in XML 1.1 [XML Namespaces 1.1] may rely on alternative resource identifier types, requiring support for alternative resource identifier types where required by applicable specifications.

Regardless of the exact type of a DOM URI, the term "absolute URI" refers to a complete resource identifier and the term "relative URI" refers to an incomplete resource identifier.

1.3.3 XML Namespaces

DOM Level 2 and 3 support XML namespaces [XML Namespaces] by augmenting several interfaces of the DOM Level 1 Core to allow creating and manipulating elements and attributes associated to a namespace. When [XML 1.1] is in use (see Document.xmlVersion), DOM Level 3 also supports [XML Namespaces 1.1].

As far as the DOM is concerned, special attributes used for declaring XML namespaces are still exposed and can be manipulated just like any other attribute. However, nodes are permanently bound to namespace URIs as they get created. Consequently, moving a node within a document, using the DOM, in no case results in a change of its namespace prefix or namespace URI. Similarly, creating a node with a namespace prefix and namespace URI, or changing the namespace prefix of a node, does not result in any addition, removal, or modification of any special attributes for declaring the appropriate XML namespaces. Namespace validation is not enforced; the DOM application is responsible. In particular, since the mapping between prefixes and namespace URIs is not enforced, in general, the resulting document cannot be serialized naively. For example, applications may have to declare every namespace in use when serializing a document.

In general, the DOM implementation (and higher) doesn't perform any URI normalization or canonicalization. The URIs given to the DOM are assumed to be valid (e.g., characters such as white spaces are properly escaped), and no lexical checking is performed. Absolute URI references are treated as strings and compared literally. How relative namespace URI references are treated is undefined. To ensure interoperability only absolute namespace URI references (i.e., URI references beginning with a scheme name and a colon) should be used. Applications should use the value null as the namespaceURI parameter for methods if they wish to have no namespace. In programming languages where empty strings can be differentiated from null, the way empty strings are treated, when given as a namespace URI to a DOM Level 2 method, is implementation dependent. This is true even though the DOM does no lexical checking of URIs.

Note: Element.setAttributeNS(null, ...) put the attribute in the per-element-type partitions as defined in XML Namespace Partitions in [XML Namespaces].

Note: In the DOM, all namespace declaration attributes are by definition bound to the namespace URI: "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/". These are the attributes whose namespace prefix or qualified name is "xmlns". Although, at the time of writing, this is not part of the XML Namespaces specification [XML Namespaces], it is planned to be incorporated in a future revision.

In a document with no namespaces, the child list of an EntityReference node is always the same as that of the corresponding Entity. This is not true in a document where an entity contains unbound namespace prefixes. In such a case, the descendants of the corresponding EntityReference nodes may be bound to different namespace URIs, depending on where the entity references are. Also, because, in the DOM, nodes always remain bound to the same namespace URI, moving such EntityReference nodes can lead to documents that cannot be serialized. This is also true when the DOM Level 1 method Document.createEntityReference(name) is used to create entity references that correspond to such entities, since the descendants of the returned EntityReference are unbound. The DOM Level 2 does not support any mechanism to resolve namespace prefixes. For all of these reasons, use of such entities and entity references should be avoided or used with extreme care. A future Level of the DOM may include some additional support for handling these.

The new methods, such as Document.createElementNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName) and Document.createAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName), are meant to be used by namespace aware applications. Simple applications that do not use namespaces can use the DOM Level 1 methods, such as Document.createElement(tagName) and Document.createAttribute(name). Elements and attributes created in this way do not have any namespace prefix, namespace URI, or local name.

Note: DOM Level 1 methods are namespace ignorant. Therefore, while it is safe to use these methods when not dealing with namespaces, using them and the new ones at the same time should be avoided. DOM Level 1 methods solely identify attribute nodes by their Node.nodeName. On the contrary, the DOM Level 2 methods related to namespaces, identify attribute nodes by their Node.namespaceURI and Node.localName. Because of this fundamental difference, mixing both sets of methods can lead to unpredictable results. In particular, using Element.setAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, value), an element may have two attributes (or more) that have the same Node.nodeName, but different Node.namespaceURIs. Calling Element.getAttribute(name) with that nodeName could then return any of those attributes. The result depends on the implementation. Similarly, using Element.setAttributeNode(newAttr), one can set two attributes (or more) that have different Node.nodeNames but the same Node.prefix and Node.namespaceURI. In this case Element.getAttributeNodeNS(namespaceURI, localName) will return either attribute, in an implementation dependent manner. The only guarantee in such cases is that all methods that access a named item by its nodeName will access the same item, and all methods which access a node by its URI and local name will access the same node. For instance, Element.setAttribute(name, value) and Element.setAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, value) affect the node that Element.getAttribute(name) and Element.getAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName), respectively, return.

1.3.4 Base URIs

The DOM Level 3 adds support for the [base URI] property defined in [XML Information set] by providing a new attribute on the Node interface that exposes this information. However, unlike the Node.namespaceURI attribute, the Node.baseURI attribute is not a static piece of information that every node carries. Instead, it is a value that is dynamically computed according to [XML Base]. This means its value depends on the location of the node in the tree and moving the node from one place to another in the tree may affect its value. Other changes, such as adding or changing an xml:base attribute on the node being queried or one of its ancestors may also affect its value.

One consequence of this it that when external entity references are expanded while building a Document one may need to add, or change, an xml:base attribute to the Element nodes originally contained in the entity being expanded so that the Node.baseURI returns the correct value. In the case of ProcessingInstruction nodes originally contained in the entity being expanded the information is lost. [DOM Level 3 Load and Save] handles elements as described here and generates a warning in the latter case.

1.3.5 Mixed DOM implementations

As new XML vocabularies are developed, those defining the vocabularies are also beginning to define specialized APIs for manipulating XML instances of those vocabularies. This is usually done by extending the DOM to provide interfaces and methods that perform operations frequently needed their users. For example, the MathML [MathML 2.0] and SVG [SVG 1.0] specifications are developing DOM extensions to allow users to manipulate instances of these vocabularies using semantics appropriate to images and mathematics (respectively) as well as the generic DOM XML semantics. Instances of SVG or MathML are often embedded in XML documents conforming to a different schema such as XHTML.

While the Namespaces in XML specification [XML Namespaces] provides a mechanism for integrating these documents at the syntax level, it has become clear that the DOM Level 2 Recommendation [DOM Level 2 Core] is not rich enough to cover all the issues that have been encountered in having these different DOM implementations be used together in a single application. DOM Level 3 deals with the requirements brought about by embedding fragments written according to a specific markup language (the embedded component) in a document where the rest of the markup is not written according to that specific markup language (the host document). It does not deal with fragments embedded by reference or linking.

A DOM implementation supporting DOM Level 3 Core should be able to collaborate with subcomponents implementing specific DOMs to assemble a compound document that can be traversed and manipulated via DOM interfaces as if it were a seamless whole.

The normal typecast operation on an object should support the interfaces expected by legacy code for a given document type. Typecasting techniques may not be adequate for selecting between multiple DOM specializations of an object which were combined at run time, because they may not all be part of the same object as defined by the binding's object model. Conflicts are most obvious with the Document object, since it is shared as owner by the rest of the document. In a homogeneous document, elements rely on the Document for specialized services and construction of specialized nodes. In a heterogeneous document, elements from different modules expect different services and APIs from the same Document object, since there can only be one owner and root of the document hierarchy.

1.3.6 DOM Features

Each DOM module defines one or more features, as listed in the conformance section (Conformance). Features are case-insensitive and are also defined for a specific set of versions. For example, this specification defines the features "Core" and "XML", and thus for the versions "1.0", "2.0", and "3.0". To avoid possible conflicts, as a convention, names referring to features defined outside the DOM specification should be made unique. Applications could then request for features to be supported by a DOM implementation using the methods DOMImplementationSource.getDOMImplementation(features) or DOMImplementationSource.getDOMImplementations(features), check the features supported by a DOM implementation using the method DOMImplementation.hasFeature(feature, version), or by a specific node using Node.isSupported(feature, version). Note that when using the methods that take a feature and a version as parameters, applications can use null or empty string for the version parameter if they don't wish to specify a particular version for the specified feature.

Up to the DOM Level 2 modules, all interfaces, that were an extension of existing ones, were accessible using binding-specific casting mechanisms if the feature associated to the extension was supported. For example, an instance of the EventTarget interface could be obtained from an instance of the Node interface if the feature "Events" was supported by the node.

As discussed Mixed DOM implementations, DOM Level 3 Core should be able to collaborate with subcomponents implementing specific DOMs. For that effect, the methods DOMImplementation.getFeature(feature, version) and Node.getFeature(feature, version) were introduced. If a plus sign "+" is prepended to any feature name, implementations are considered in which the specified feature may not be directly castable but would require discovery through getFeature. Without a plus, only features whose interfaces are directly castable are considered.

// example 1, without prepending the "+"
if (myNode.isSupported("Events", "3.0")) {
    EventTarget evt = (EventTarget) myNode;
    // ...
}
// example 2, with the "+"
if (myNode.isSupported("+Events", "3.0")) {
    // (the plus sign "+" is irrelevant for the getFeature method itself
    // and is ignored by this method anyway)
    EventTarget evt = (EventTarget) myNode.getFeature("Events", "3.0");
    // ...
}

1.3.7 Bootstrapping

Because previous versions of the DOM specification only defined a set of interfaces, applications had to rely on some implementation dependent code to start from. However, hard-coding the application to a specific implementation prevents the application from running on other implementations and from using the most-suitable implementation of the environment. At the same time, implementations may also need to load modules or perform other setup to efficiently adapt to different and sometimes mutually-exclusive feature sets.

To solve these problems this specification introduces a DOMImplementationRegistry object with a function that lets an application find implementations, based on the specific features it requires. How this object is found and what it exactly looks like is not defined here, because this cannot be done in a language-independent manner. Instead, each language binding defines its own way of doing this. See Java Language Binding and ECMAScript Language Binding for specifics.

In all cases, though, the DOMImplementationRegistry provides a getDOMImplementation method accepting a features string, which is passed to every known DOMImplementationSource until a suitable DOMImplementation is found and returned. The DOMImplementationRegistry also provides a getDOMImplementations method accepting a features string, which is passed to every known DOMImplementationSource, and returns a list of suitable DOMImplementations. Those two methods are the same as the ones found on the DOMImplementationSource interface defined below.

Any number of DOMImplementationSource objects can be registered. A source may return one or more DOMImplementation singletons or construct new DOMImplementation objects, depending upon whether the requested features require specialized state in the DOMImplementation object.

1.4 Fundamental Interfaces: Core module

The interfaces within this section are considered fundamental, and must be fully implemented by all conforming implementations of the DOM, including all HTML DOM implementations [DOM Level 2 HTML], unless otherwise specified.

A DOM application may use the DOMImplementation.hasFeature(feature, version) method with parameter values "Core" and "3.0" (respectively) to determine whether or not this module is supported by the implementation. Any implementation that conforms to DOM Level 3 or a DOM Level 3 module must conform to the Core module. Please refer to additional information about conformance in this specification. The DOM Level 3 Core module is backward compatible with the DOM Level 2 Core [DOM Level 2 Core] module, i.e. a DOM Level 3 Core implementation who returns true for "Core" with the version number "3.0" must also return true for this feature when the version number is "2.0", "" or, null.

Exception DOMException

DOM operations only raise exceptions in "exceptional" circumstances, i.e., when an operation is impossible to perform (either for logical reasons, because data is lost, or because the implementation has become unstable). In general, DOM methods return specific error values in ordinary processing situations, such as out-of-bound errors when using NodeList.

Implementations should raise other exceptions under other circumstances. For example, implementations should raise an implementation-dependent exception if a null argument is passed when null was not expected.

Some languages and object systems do not support the concept of exceptions. For such systems, error conditions may be indicated using native error reporting mechanisms. For some bindings, for example, methods may return error codes similar to those listed in the corresponding method descriptions.

IDL Definition

exception DOMException {
  unsigned short   code;
};
// ExceptionCode
const unsigned short      INDEX_SIZE_ERR                 = 1;
const unsigned short      DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR             = 2;
const unsigned short      HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR          = 3;
const unsigned short      WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR             = 4;
const unsigned short      INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR          = 5;
const unsigned short      NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR            = 6;
const unsigned short      NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR    = 7;
const unsigned short      NOT_FOUND_ERR                  = 8;
const unsigned short      NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR              = 9;
const unsigned short      INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR            = 10;
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
const unsigned short      INVALID_STATE_ERR              = 11;
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
const unsigned short      SYNTAX_ERR                     = 12;
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
const unsigned short      INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR       = 13;
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
const unsigned short      NAMESPACE_ERR                  = 14;
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
const unsigned short      INVALID_ACCESS_ERR             = 15;
// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
const unsigned short      VALIDATION_ERR                 = 16;
// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
const unsigned short      TYPE_MISMATCH_ERR              = 17;

Definition group ExceptionCode

An integer indicating the type of error generated.

Note: Other numeric codes are reserved for W3C for possible future use.

Defined Constants

DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: If the specified range of text does not fit into a DOMString
HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: If any node is inserted somewhere it doesn't belong
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: If index or size is negative, or greater than the allowed value
INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: If an attempt is made to add an attribute that is already in use elsewhere
INVALID_ACCESS_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.: If a parameter or an operation is not supported by the underlying object.
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: If an invalid or illegal character is specified, such as in a name.
INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.: If an attempt is made to modify the type of the underlying object.
INVALID_STATE_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.: If an attempt is made to use an object that is not, or is no longer, usable.
NAMESPACE_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.: If an attempt is made to create or change an object in a way which is incorrect with regard to namespaces.
NOT_FOUND_ERR: If an attempt is made to reference a node in a context where it does not exist
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: If the implementation does not support the requested type of object or operation.
NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR: If data is specified for a node which does not support data
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: If an attempt is made to modify an object where modifications are not allowed
SYNTAX_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.: If an invalid or illegal string is specified.
TYPE_MISMATCH_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 3.: If the type of an object is incompatible with the expected type of the parameter associated to the object.
VALIDATION_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 3.: If a call to a method such as insertBefore or removeChild would make the Node invalid with respect to "partial validity", this exception would be raised and the operation would not be done. This code is used in [DOM Level 3 Validation]. Refer to this specification for further information.
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: If a node is used in a different document than the one that created it (that doesn't support it)

Interface DOMStringList (introduced in DOM Level 3)

The DOMStringList interface provides the abstraction of an ordered collection of parallel pairs of name and namespace values, without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. The items in the DOMStringList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0.

IDL Definition

// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
interface DOMStringList {
  DOMString          item(in unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long   length;
};

Attributes

length of type unsigned long, readonly: The number of DOMStrings in the list. The range of valid child node indices is 0 to length-1 inclusive.

Methods

item

Returns the indexth item in the collection. If index is greater than or equal to the number of DOMStrings in the list, this returns null.

Parameters

index of type unsigned long: Index into the collection.

Return Value

DOMString

The DOMString at the indexth position in the DOMStringList, or null if that is not a valid index.

No Exceptions

Interface NameList (introduced in DOM Level 3)

The NameList interface provides the abstraction of an ordered collection of parallel pairs of name and namespace values, without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. The items in the NameList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0.

IDL Definition

// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
interface NameList {
  DOMString          getName(in unsigned long index)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  DOMString          getNamespaceURI(in unsigned long index)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  readonly attribute unsigned long   length;
};

Attributes

length of type unsigned long, readonly: The number of pairs (name and namespaceURI) in the list. The range of valid child node indices is 0 to length-1 inclusive.

Methods

getName

Returns the indexth name item in the collection.

Parameters

index of type unsigned long: Index into the collection.

Return Value

DOMString

The DOMString at the indexth position in the NameList.

Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: If index is greater than or equal to the number of nodes in the list.

getNamespaceURI

Returns the indexth namespaceURI item in the collection.

Parameters

index of type unsigned long: Index into the collection.

Return Value

DOMString

The DOMString at the indexth position in the NameList.

Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: If index is greater than or equal to the number of nodes in the list.

Interface DOMImplementationList (introduced in DOM Level 3)

The DOMImplementationList interface provides the abstraction of an ordered collection of DOM implementations, without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. The items in the DOMImplementationList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0.

IDL Definition

// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
interface DOMImplementationList {
  DOMImplementation  item(in unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long   length;
};

Attributes

length of type unsigned long, readonly: The number of DOMImplementations in the list. The range of valid child node indices is 0 to length-1 inclusive.

Methods

item

Returns the indexth item in the collection. If index is greater than or equal to the number of DOMImplementations in the list, this returns null.

Parameters

index of type unsigned long: Index into the collection.

Return Value

DOMImplementation

The DOMImplementation at the indexth position in the DOMImplementationList, or null if that is not a valid index.

No Exceptions

Interface DOMImplementationSource (introduced in DOM Level 3)

This interface permits a DOM implementer to supply one or more implementations, based upon requested features and versions, as specified in DOM Features. Each implemented DOMImplementationSource object is listed in the binding-specific list of available sources so that its DOMImplementation objects are made available.

IDL Definition

// Introduced in DOM Level 3:
interface DOMImplementationSource {
  DOMImplementation  getDOMImplementation(in DOMString features);
  DOMImplementationList getDOMImplementations(in DOMString features);
};

Methods

getDOMImplementation

A method to request the first DOM implementation that support the specified features.

Parameters

features of type DOMString: A string that specifies which features and versions are required. This is a space separated list in which each feature is specified by its name optionally followed by a space and a version number.
As an example, the string "XML 3.0 Traversal +Events 2.0" will request a DOM implementation that supports the module "XML" for its 3.0 version, a module that support of the "Traversal" module for any version, and the module "Events" for its 2.0 version. The module "Events" must be accessible using the method Node.getFeature() and DOMImplementation.getFeature().

Return Value

DOMImplementation

The first DOM implementation that support the desired features, or null if this source has none.

No Exceptions

getDOMImplementations

A method to request a list of DOM implementations that support the specified features and versions, as specified in DOM Features.

Parameters

features of type DOMString: A string that specifies which features and versions are required. This is a space separated list in which each feature is specified by its name optionally followed by a space and a version number. This is something like: "XML 3.0 Traversal +Events 2.0"

Return Value

DOMImplementationList

A list of DOM implementations that support the desired features.

No Exceptions

Interface DOMImplementation

The DOMImplementation interface provides a number of methods for performing operations that are independent of any particular instance of the document object model.

IDL Definition

interface DOMImplementation {
  boolean            hasFeature(in DOMString feature, 
                                in DOMString version);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  DocumentType       createDocumentType(in DOMString qualifiedName, 
                                        in DOMString publicId, 
                                        in DOMString systemId)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Document           createDocument(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                    in DOMString qualifiedName, 
                                    in DocumentType doctype)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 3:
  DOMObject          getFeature(in DOMString feature, 
                                in DOMString version);
};

Methods

createDocument introduced in DOM Level 2

Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification

Version 1.0

W3C Working Draft 09 June 2003

Abstract

Status of this document

Table of contents

Expanded Table of Contents

W3C Copyright Notices and Licenses

W3C® Document Copyright Notice and License

W3C® Software Copyright Notice and License

W3C® Short Software Notice

What is the Document Object Model?

Introduction

What the Document Object Model is

What the Document Object Model is not

Where the Document Object Model came from

Entities and the DOM Core

DOM Architecture

Conformance

DOM Interfaces and DOM Implementations

1. Document Object Model Core

Table of contents

1.1 Overview of the DOM Core Interfaces

1.1.1 The DOM Structure Model

1.1.2 Memory Management

1.1.3 Naming Conventions

1.1.4 Inheritance vs. Flattened Views of the API

1.2 Primitive types

1.2.1 The DOMString type

1.2.2 The DOMTimeStamp type

1.2.3 The DOMUserData type

1.2.4 The DOMObject type

1.3 General considerations

1.3.1 String comparisons in the DOM

1.3.2 DOM URIs

1.3.3 XML Namespaces

1.3.4 Base URIs

1.3.5 Mixed DOM implementations

1.3.6 DOM Features

1.3.7 Bootstrapping

1.4 Fundamental Interfaces: Core module

W3C^® Document Copyright Notice and License

W3C^® Software Copyright Notice and License

W3C^® Short Software Notice

1.2.1 The `DOMString` type

1.2.2 The `DOMTimeStamp` type

1.2.3 The `DOMUserData` type

1.2.4 The `DOMObject` type