> > > > > > > > > > ****** Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification ****** ***** Version 1.0 ***** ***** W3C Proposed Recommendation 05 February 2004 ***** This version: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/PR-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040205 Latest version: http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core Previous version: http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-DOM-Level-3-Core-20031107 Editors: Arnaud Le Hors, IBM Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C Lauren Wood, SoftQuad, Inc. (WG Chair emerita, for DOM Level 1 and 2) Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS (for DOM Level 1) Jonathan Robie, Texcel Research and Software AG (for DOM Level 1 and 2) Mike Champion, Arbortext and Software AG (for DOM Level 1 and 2) Steve Byrne, JavaSoft (for DOM Level 1 until November 19, 1997) This document is also available in these non-normative formats: XML_file, plain text, PostScript_file, PDF_file, single_HTML_file, and ZIP_file. Copyright ©2004 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document_use and software_licensing rules apply. > ***** Abstract ***** 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]. This version enhances DOM Level 2 Core by completing the mapping between DOM and the XML Information Set [XML_Information_Set], including the support for XML Base [XML_Base], adding the ability to attach user information to DOM Nodes or to bootstrap a DOM implementation, providing mechanisms to resolve namespace prefixes or to manipulate "ID" attributes, giving to type information, etc. ***** Status of this document ***** This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C_technical_reports_index at http://www.w3.org/TR/. This document contains the Document Object Model Level 3 Core specification and is a Proposed_Recommendation. It has been produced as part of the W3C_DOM Activity. The authors of this document are the DOM Working Group members. For more information about DOM, readers can also refer to DOM_FAQ and DOM Conformance_Test_Suites. It is based on the feedback received during the Candidate_Recommendation period. An implementation_report is available. W3C Advisory Committee Representatives are now invited to submit their formal review via Web form, as described in the Call for Review. Additional comments may be sent to a Team-only list, dom-review@w3.org. The public is invited to send comments to the public mailing list www-dom@w3.org (public_archive). The review period ends on 5 March 2004. Publication as a Proposed Recommendation does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress. Patent disclosures relevant to this specification may be found on the Working Group's patent_disclosure_page. ***** Table of contents ***** * Expanded_Table_of_Contents * W3C_Copyright_Notices_and_Licenses * What_is_the_Document_Object_Model? * 1._Document_Object_Model_Core * Appendix_A:_Changes * Appendix_B:_Namespaces_Algorithms * Appendix_C:_Infoset_mapping * Appendix_D:_Configuration_Settings * Appendix_E:_Accessing_code_point_boundaries * Appendix_F:_IDL_Definitions * Appendix_G:_Java_Language_Binding * Appendix_H:_ECMAScript_Language_Binding * Appendix_I:_Acknowledgements * Glossary * References * Index 05 February 2004 ****** Expanded Table of Contents ****** * Expanded_Table_of_Contents * W3C_Copyright_Notices_and_Licenses o W3C®_Document_Copyright_Notice_and_License o W3C®_Software_Copyright_Notice_and_License o W3C®_Short_Software_Notice * What_is_the_Document_Object_Model? o Introduction o What_the_Document_Object_Model_is o What_the_Document_Object_Model_is_not o Where_the_Document_Object_Model_came_from o Entities_and_the_DOM_Core o DOM_Architecture o Conformance o DOM_Interfaces_and_DOM_Implementations * 1_Document_Object_Model_Core o 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 o 1.2_Basic_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 o 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 o 1.4_Fundamental_Interfaces:_Core_module o 1.5_Extended_Interfaces:_XML_module * Appendix_A:_Changes o A.1_New_sections o A.2_Changes_to_DOM_Level_2_Core_interfaces_and_exceptions o A.3_New_DOM_features o A.4_New_types o A.5_New_interfaces o A.6_Objects * Appendix_B:_Namespaces_Algorithms o B.1_Namespace_normalization # B.1.1_Scope_of_a_binding # B.1.2_Conflicting_namespace_declaration o B.2_Namespace_Prefix_Lookup o B.3_Default_Namespace_Lookup o B.4_Namespace_URI_Lookup * Appendix_C:_Infoset_mapping o C.1_Document_node_mapping # C.1.1_Infoset_to_Document_node # C.1.2_Document_node_to_Infoset o C.2_Element_node_mapping # C.2.1_Infoset_to_Element_node # C.2.2_Element_node_to_Infoset o C.3_Attr_node_mapping # C.3.1_Infoset_to_Attr_node # C.3.2_Attr_node_to_Infoset o C.4_ProcessingInstruction_node_mapping # C.4.1_Infoset_to_ProcessingInstruction_node # C.4.2_ProcessingInstruction_node_to_Infoset o C.5_EntityReference_node_mapping # C.5.1_Infoset_to_EntityReference_node # C.5.2_EntityReference_node_to_Infoset o C.6_Text_and_CDATASection_nodes_mapping # C.6.1_Infoset_to_Text_node # C.6.2_Text_and_CDATASection_nodes_to_Infoset o C.7_Comment_node_mapping # C.7.1_Infoset_to_Comment_node # C.7.2_Comment_node_to_Infoset o C.8_DocumentType_node_mapping # C.8.1_Infoset_to_DocumentType_node # C.8.2_DocumentType_node_to_Infoset o C.9_Entity_node_mapping # C.9.1_Infoset_to_Entity_node # C.9.2_Entity_node_to_Infoset o C.10_Notation_node_mapping # C.10.1_Infoset_to_Notation_node # C.10.2_Notation_node_to_Infoset * Appendix_D:_Configuration_Settings o D.1_Configuration_Scenarios * Appendix_E:_Accessing_code_point_boundaries o E.1_Introduction o E.2_Methods * Appendix_F:_IDL_Definitions * Appendix_G:_Java_Language_Binding o G.1_Java_Binding_Extension o G.2_Other_Core_interfaces * Appendix_H:_ECMAScript_Language_Binding o H.1_ECMAScript_Binding_Extension o H.2_Other_Core_interfaces * Appendix_I:_Acknowledgements o I.1_Production_Systems * Glossary * References o 1_Normative_references o 2_Informative_references * Index 05 February 2004 ****** W3C Copyright Notices and Licenses ****** Copyright © 2004 World_Wide_Web_Consortium, (Massachusetts_Institute_of Technology, European_Research_Consortium_for_Informatics_and_Mathematics, Keio University). 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[1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231 05 February 2004 ****** 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:
Shady Grove Aeolian
Over the River, Charlie Dorian
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:

This is a dog & a cat

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

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]. 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, 1. 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. 2. DOM applications may provide additional interfaces and objects not found in this specification and still be considered DOM conformant. 3. 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. 05 February 2004 ****** 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) ***** Table of contents ***** * 1.1_Overview_of_the_DOM_Core_Interfaces o 1.1.1_The_DOM_Structure_Model o 1.1.2_Memory_Management o 1.1.3_Naming_Conventions o 1.1.4_Inheritance_vs._Flattened_Views_of_the_API * 1.2_Basic_types o 1.2.1_The_DOMString_type # DOMString o 1.2.2_The_DOMTimeStamp_type # DOMTimeStamp o 1.2.3_The_DOMUserData_type # DOMUserData o 1.2.4_The_DOMObject_type # DOMObject * 1.3_General_considerations o 1.3.1_String_comparisons_in_the_DOM o 1.3.2_DOM_URIs o 1.3.3_XML_Namespaces o 1.3.4_Base_URIs o 1.3.5_Mixed_DOM_implementations o 1.3.6_DOM_Features o 1.3.7_Bootstrapping * 1.4_Fundamental_Interfaces:_Core_module o 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 o 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 Basic types ***** To ensure interoperability, this specification specifies the following basic types used in various DOM modules. Even though the DOM uses the basic 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 sequence of 16- bit_units using UTF-16 as defined in [Unicode] and Amendment 1 of [ISO/IEC 10646]. Characters are fully_normalized as defined in appendix B of [XML_1.1] if: * the parameter "normalize-characters" was set to true while loading the document or the document was certified as defined in [XML_1.1]; * the parameter "normalize-characters" was set to true while using the method Document.normalizeDocument(), or while using the method Node.normalize(); Note that, with the exceptions of Document.normalizeDocument() and Node.normalize(), manipulating characters using DOM methods does not guarantee to preserve a fully-normalized text. Type Definition DOMString A DOMString is a sequence of 16-bit_units. valuetype DOMString sequence; > 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. 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 application data. Type Definition DOMUserData A DOMUserData represents a reference to application data. 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 DOMObject type is used to represent an object. Type Definition DOMObject A DOMObject represents an object reference. 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, i.e. transforming into their fully_normalized form as as defined in [XML_1.1], 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 DOMConfiguration parameters "normalize-characters" and "check- character-normalization" to assure that text is fully_normalized [XML_1.1]. 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: 1. An absolute identifier absolutely identifies a resource on the Web; 2. Simple string equality establishes equality of absolute resource identifiers, and no other equivalence of resource identifiers is considered significant to the DOM specification; 3. A relative identifier is easily detected and made absolute relative to an absolute identifier; 4. Retrieval of content of a resource may be accomplished where required. The term "absolute URI" refers to a complete resource identifier and the term "relative URI" refers to an incomplete resource identifier. Within the DOM specifications, these identifiers are called URIs, "Uniform 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 a DOM URI, either because a relative identifier must be made absolute or because content must be retrieved, the DOM implementation must at least support identifier types appropriate to the content being processed. [HTML_4.01], [XML_1.0], and associated namespace specification [XML_Namespaces] rely on [IETF_RFC_2396] to determine permissible characters and resolving relative URIs. Other specifications such as namespaces in XML 1.1 [XML_Namespaces_1.1] may rely on alternative resource identifier types that may, for example, include non-ASCII characters, necessitating support for alternative resource identifier types where required by applicable specifications. **** 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, empty strings, when given as a namespace URI, are converted to null. This is true even though the DOM does no lexical checking of URIs. Note: Element.setAttributeNS(null,_...) puts 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" as introduced in [XML Namespaces_1.1]. 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. While DOM Level 3 does have support for the resolution of namespace prefixes, use of such entities and entity references should be avoided or used with extreme care. The "NS" 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 by their users. For example, the MathML [MathML_2.0] and SVG [SVG_1.1] specifications have developed 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", for the version "3.0". Versions "1.0" and "2.0" can also be used for features defined in the corresponding DOM Levels. 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.getDOMImplementationList(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. In the case of DOMImplementation.hasFeature (feature,_version) and Node.isSupported(feature,_version), 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 DOMImplementation.getFeature(feature,_version) and Node.getFeature (feature,_version). 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 getDOMImplementationList 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. 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. 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 DOMString values, without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. The items in the DOMStringList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0. // Introduced in DOM Level 3: interface DOMStringList { DOMString item(in unsigned long index); readonly attribute unsigned long length; boolean contains(in DOMString str); }; > 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 contains Test if a string is part of this DOMStringList. Parameters str of type DOMString The string to look for.> Return Value boolean true if the string has been found, false otherwise. No Exceptions 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 (which could be null values), without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. The items in the NameList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0. // Introduced in DOM Level 3: interface NameList { DOMString getName(in unsigned long index); DOMString getNamespaceURI(in unsigned long index); readonly attribute unsigned long length; boolean contains(in DOMString str); boolean containsNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString name); }; > 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 contains Test if a name is part of this NameList. Parameters str of type DOMString The name to look for.> Return Value boolean true if the name has been found, false otherwise. No Exceptions containsNS Test if the pair namespaceURI/name is part of this NameList. Parameters namespaceURI of type DOMString The namespace URI to look for.> name of type DOMString The name to look for.> Return Value boolean true if the pair namespaceURI/name has been found, false otherwise. No Exceptions getName Returns the indexth name item in the collection. Parameters index of type unsigned long Index into the collection.> Return Value DOMString The name at the indexth position in the NameList, or null if there is no name for the specified index or if the index is out of range. No Exceptions getNamespaceURI Returns the indexth namespaceURI item in the collection. Parameters index of type unsigned long Index into the collection.> Return Value DOMString The namespace URI at the indexth position in the NameList, or null if there is no name for the specified index or if the index is out of range. No Exceptions 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. // 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. // Introduced in DOM Level 3: interface DOMImplementationSource { DOMImplementation getDOMImplementation(in DOMString features); DOMImplementationList getDOMImplementationList(in DOMString features); }; > Methods getDOMImplementation A method to request the first DOM implementation that supports 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.> This method returns the first item of the list returned by getDOMImplementationList.> 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 getDOMImplementationList 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. 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 Creates a DOM Document object of the specified type with its document element. > Note that based on the DocumentType given to create the document, the implementation may instantiate specialized Document objects that support additional features than the "Core", such as "HTML" [DOM_Level_2_HTML]. On the other hand, setting the DocumentType after the document was created makes this very unlikely to happen. Alternatively, specialized Document creation methods, such as createHTMLDocument [DOM Level_2_HTML], can be used to obtain specific types of Document objects. Parameters namespaceURI of type DOMString The namespace_URI of the document element to create or null.> qualifiedName of type DOMString The qualified_name of the document element to be created or null.> doctype of type DocumentType The type of document to be created or null.> When doctype is not null, its Node.ownerDocument attribute is set to the document being created.> Return Value Document A new Document object with its document element. If the NamespaceURI, qualifiedName, and doctype are null, the returned Document is empty with no document element. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character according to [XML_1.0]. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, if the qualifiedName has a prefix and the namespaceURI is null, or if the qualifiedName is null and the namespaceURI is different from null, or if the qualifiedName has a prefix that is "xml" and the namespaceURI is different from "http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/ namespace" [XML_Namespaces], or if the DOM implementation does not support the "XML" feature but a non-null namespace URI was provided, since namespaces were defined by XML. WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if doctype has already been used with a different document or was created from a different implementation. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: May be raised if the implementation does not support the feature "XML" and the language exposed through the Document does not support XML Namespaces (such as [HTML_4.01]). createDocumentType introduced in DOM Level 2 Creates an empty DocumentType node. Entity declarations and notations are not made available. Entity reference expansions and default attribute additions do not occur.. Parameters qualifiedName of type DOMString The qualified_name of the document type to be created.> publicId of type DOMString The external subset public identifier.> systemId of type DOMString The external subset system identifier.> Return Value DocumentType A new DocumentType node with Node.ownerDocument set to null. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character according to [XML_1.0]. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: May be raised if the implementation does not support the feature "XML" and the language exposed through the Document does not support XML Namespaces (such as [HTML_4.01]). getFeature introduced in DOM Level 3 This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in DOM_Features. The specialized object may also be obtained by using binding-specific casting methods but is not necessarily expected to, as discussed in Mixed_DOM implementations. This method also allow the implementation to provide specialized objects which do not support the DOMImplementation interface. Parameters feature of type DOMString The name of the feature requested. Note that any plus sign "+" prepended to the name of the feature will be ignored since it is not significant in the context of this method.> version of type DOMString This is the version number of the feature to test.> Return Value DOMObject Returns an object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, if any, or null if there is no object which implements interfaces associated with that feature. If the DOMObject returned by this method implements the DOMImplementation interface, it must delegate to the primary core DOMImplementation and not return results inconsistent with the primary core DOMImplementation such as hasFeature, getFeature, etc. No Exceptions hasFeature Test if the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and version, as specified in DOM_Features. Parameters feature of type DOMString The name of the feature to test.> version of type DOMString This is the version number of the feature to test.> Return Value boolean true if the feature is implemented in the specified version, false otherwise. No Exceptions Interface DocumentFragment DocumentFragment is a "lightweight" or "minimal" Document object. It is very common to want to be able to extract a portion of a document's tree or to create a new fragment of a document. Imagine implementing a user command like cut or rearranging a document by moving fragments around. It is desirable to have an object which can hold such fragments and it is quite natural to use a Node for this purpose. While it is true that a Document object could fulfill this role, a Document object can potentially be a heavyweight object, depending on the underlying implementation. What is really needed for this is a very lightweight object. DocumentFragment is such an object. Furthermore, various operations -- such as inserting nodes as children of another Node -- may take DocumentFragment objects as arguments; this results in all the child nodes of the DocumentFragment being moved to the child list of this node. The children of a DocumentFragment node are zero or more nodes representing the tops of any sub-trees defining the structure of the document. DocumentFragment nodes do not need to be well-formed_XML documents (although they do need to follow the rules imposed upon well- formed XML parsed entities, which can have multiple top nodes). For example, a DocumentFragment might have only one child and that child node could be a Text node. Such a structure model represents neither an HTML document nor a well-formed XML document. When a DocumentFragment is inserted into a Document (or indeed any other Node that may take children) the children of the DocumentFragment and not the DocumentFragment itself are inserted into the Node. This makes the DocumentFragment very useful when the user wishes to create nodes that are siblings; the DocumentFragment acts as the parent of these nodes so that the user can use the standard methods from the Node interface, such as Node.insertBefore and Node.appendChild. interface DocumentFragment : Node { }; > Interface Document The Document interface represents the entire HTML or XML document. Conceptually, it is the root of the document tree, and provides the primary access to the document's data. Since elements, text nodes, comments, processing instructions, etc. cannot exist outside the context of a Document, the Document interface also contains the factory methods needed to create these objects. The Node objects created have a ownerDocument attribute which associates them with the Document within whose context they were created. interface Document : Node { // Modified in DOM Level 3: readonly attribute DocumentType doctype; readonly attribute DOMImplementation implementation; readonly attribute Element documentElement; Element createElement(in DOMString tagName) raises(DOMException); DocumentFragment createDocumentFragment(); Text createTextNode(in DOMString data); Comment createComment(in DOMString data); CDATASection createCDATASection(in DOMString data) raises(DOMException); ProcessingInstruction createProcessingInstruction(in DOMString target, in DOMString data) raises(DOMException); Attr createAttribute(in DOMString name) raises(DOMException); EntityReference createEntityReference(in DOMString name) raises(DOMException); NodeList getElementsByTagName(in DOMString tagname); // Introduced in DOM Level 2: Node importNode(in Node importedNode, in boolean deep) raises(DOMException); // Introduced in DOM Level 2: Element createElementNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString qualifiedName) raises(DOMException); // Introduced in DOM Level 2: Attr createAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString qualifiedName) raises(DOMException); // Introduced in DOM Level 2: NodeList getElementsByTagNameNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString localName); // Introduced in DOM Level 2: Element getElementById(in DOMString elementId); // Introduced in DOM Level 3: readonly attribute DOMString inputEncoding; // Introduced in DOM Level 3: readonly attribute DOMString xmlEncoding; // Introduced in DOM Level 3: attribute boolean xmlStandalone; // raises(DOMException) on setting // Introduced in DOM Level 3: attribute DOMString xmlVersion; // raises(DOMException) on setting // Introduced in DOM Level 3: attribute boolean strictErrorChecking; // Introduced in DOM Level 3: attribute DOMString documentURI; // Introduced in DOM Level 3: Node adoptNode(in Node source) raises(DOMException); // Introduced in DOM Level 3: readonly attribute DOMConfiguration domConfig; // Introduced in DOM Level 3: void normalizeDocument(); // Introduced in DOM Level 3: Node renameNode(in Node n, in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString qualifiedName) raises(DOMException); }; > Attributes doctype of type DocumentType, readonly, modified in DOM Level 3 The Document Type Declaration (see DocumentType) associated with this document. For XML documents without a document type declaration this returns null. For HTML documents, a DocumentType object may be returned, independently of the presence or absence of document type declaration in the HTML document.> This provides direct access to the DocumentType node, child node of this Document. This node can be set at document creation time and later changed through the use of child nodes manipulation methods, such as Node.insertBefore, or Node.replaceChild. Note, however, that while some implementations may instantiate different types of Document objects supporting additional features than the "Core", such as "HTML" [DOM_Level_2_HTML], based on the DocumentType specified at creation time, changing it afterwards is very unlikely to result in a change of the features supported.> documentElement of type Element, readonly This is a convenience attribute that allows direct access to the child node that is the document_element of the document.> documentURI of type DOMString, introduced in DOM Level 3 The location of the document or null if undefined or if the Document was created using DOMImplementation.createDocument. No lexical checking is performed when setting this attribute; this could result in a null value returned when using Node.baseURI.> Beware that when the Document supports the feature "HTML" [DOM_Level_2_HTML], the href attribute of the HTML BASE element takes precedence over this attribute when computing Node.baseURI.> domConfig of type DOMConfiguration, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 3 The configuration used when Document.normalizeDocument() is invoked.> implementation of type DOMImplementation, readonly The DOMImplementation object that handles this document. A DOM application may use objects from multiple implementations.> inputEncoding of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 3 An attribute specifying the encoding used for this document at the time of the parsing. This is null when it is not known, such as when the Document was created in memory.> strictErrorChecking of type boolean, introduced in DOM Level 3 An attribute specifying whether error checking is enforced or not. When set to false, the implementation is free to not test every possible error case normally defined on DOM operations, and not raise any DOMException on DOM operations or report errors while using Document.normalizeDocument(). In case of error, the behavior is undefined. This attribute is true by default.> xmlEncoding of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 3 An attribute specifying, as part of the XML_declaration, the encoding of this document. This is null when unspecified.> xmlStandalone of type boolean, introduced in DOM Level 3 An attribute specifying, as part of the XML_declaration, whether this document is standalone. This is false when unspecified. Note: No verification is done on the value when setting this attribute. Applications should use Document.normalizeDocument () with the "validate" parameter to verify if the value matches the validity_constraint_for_standalone_document declaration as defined in [XML_1.0]. Exceptions on setting DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document does not support the "XML" feature. xmlVersion of type DOMString, introduced in DOM Level 3 An attribute specifying, as part of the XML_declaration, the version number of this document. If there is no declaration and if this document supports the "XML" feature, the value is "1.0". If this document does not support the "XML" feature, the value is always null. Changing this attribute will affect methods that check for illegal characters in XML names. Application should invoke Document.normalizeDocument() in order to check for illegal characters in the Nodes that are already part of this Document.> DOM applications may use the DOMImplementation.hasFeature(feature,_version) method with parameter values "XMLVersion" and "1.0" (respectively) to determine if an implementation supports [XML_1.0]. DOM applications may use the same method with parameter values "XMLVersion" and "1.1" (respectively) to determine if an implementation supports [XML_1.1]. In both cases, in order to support XML, an implementation must also support the "XML" feature defined in this specification. Document objects supporting a version of the "XMLVersion" feature must not raise a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception for the same version number when using Document.xmlVersion.> Exceptions on setting DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the version is set to a value that is not supported by this Document or if this document does not support the "XML" feature. Methods adoptNode introduced in DOM Level 3 Attempts to adopt a node from another document to this document. If supported, it changes the ownerDocument of the source node, its children, as well as the attached attribute nodes if there are any. If the source node has a parent it is first removed from the child list of its parent. This effectively allows moving a subtree from one document to another (unlike importNode() which create a copy of the source node instead of moving it). When it fails, applications should use Document.importNode() instead. Note that if the adopted node is already part of this document (i.e. the source and target document are the same), this method still has the effect of removing the source node from the child list of its parent, if any. The following list describes the specifics for each type of node. ATTRIBUTE_NODE The ownerElement attribute is set to null and the specified flag is set to true on the adopted Attr. The descendants of the source Attr are recursively adopted. DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE The descendants of the source node are recursively adopted. DOCUMENT_NODE Document nodes cannot be adopted. DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE DocumentType nodes cannot be adopted. ELEMENT_NODE Specified attribute nodes of the source element are adopted. Default attributes are discarded, though if the document being adopted into defines default attributes for this element name, those are assigned. The descendants of the source element are recursively adopted. ENTITY_NODE Entity nodes cannot be adopted. ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE Only the EntityReference node itself is adopted, the descendants are discarded, since the source and destination documents might have defined the entity differently. If the document being imported into provides a definition for this entity name, its value is assigned. NOTATION_NODE Notation nodes cannot be adopted. PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE, TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE These nodes can all be adopted. No specifics. Note: Since it does not create new nodes unlike the Document.importNode() method, this method does not raise an INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR exception, and applications should use the Document.normalizeDocument() method to check if an imported name contain an illegal character according to the XML version in use. Parameters source of type Node The node to move into this document.> Return Value Node The adopted node, or null if this operation fails, such as when the source node comes from a different implementation. Exceptions DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the source node is of type DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT_TYPE. NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the source node is readonly. createAttribute Creates an Attr of the given name. Note that the Attr instance can then be set on an Element using the setAttributeNode method. > To create an attribute with a qualified_name and namespace URI, use the createAttributeNS method. Parameters name of type DOMString The name of the attribute.> Return Value Attr A new Attr object with the nodeName attribute set to name, and localName, prefix, and namespaceURI set to null. The value of the attribute is the empty string. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. createAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2 Creates an attribute of the given qualified_name and namespace_URI. > Per [XML_Namespaces], applications must use the value null as the namespaceURI parameter for methods if they wish to have no namespace. Parameters namespaceURI of type DOMString The namespace_URI of the attribute to create.> qualifiedName of type DOMString The qualified_name of the attribute to instantiate.> Return Value Attr A new Attr object with the following attributes: ____________________________________________________ |Attribute________|Value_____________________________| |Node.nodeName____|qualifiedName_____________________| |Node.namespaceURI|namespaceURI______________________| |Node.prefix |prefix, extracted from | | |qualifiedName, or null if there is| |_________________|no_prefix_________________________| |Node.localName |local_name, extracted from | |_________________|qualifiedName_____________________| |Attr.name________|qualifiedName_____________________| |Node.nodeValue___|the_empty_string__________________| Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualifiedName contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is a malformed qualified_name, if the qualifiedName has a prefix and the namespaceURI is null, if the qualifiedName has a prefix that is "xml" and the namespaceURI is different from "http:// www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace", if the qualifiedName or its prefix is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI is different from "http:// www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/", or if the namespaceURI is "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/" and neither the qualifiedName nor its prefix is "xmlns". NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Always thrown if the current document does not support the "XML" feature, since namespaces were defined by XML. createCDATASection Creates a CDATASection node whose value is the specified string. Parameters data of type DOMString The data for the CDATASection contents.> Return Value CDATASection The new CDATASection object. Exceptions DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. createComment Creates a Comment node given the specified string. Parameters data of type DOMString The data for the node.> Return Value Comment The new Comment object. No Exceptions createDocumentFragment Creates an empty DocumentFragment object. Return Value DocumentFragment A new DocumentFragment. No Parameters No Exceptions createElement Creates an element of the type specified. Note that the instance returned implements the Element interface, so attributes can be specified directly on the returned object. > In addition, if there are known attributes with default values, Attr nodes representing them are automatically created and attached to the element. > To create an element with a qualified_name and namespace URI, use the createElementNS method. Parameters tagName of type DOMString The name of the element type to instantiate. For XML, this is case-sensitive, otherwise it depends on the case-sensitivity of the markup language in use. In that case, the name is mapped to the canonical form of that markup by the DOM implementation.> Return Value Element A new Element object with the nodeName attribute set to tagName, and localName, prefix, and namespaceURI set to null. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. createElementNS introduced in DOM Level 2 Creates an element of the given qualified_name and namespace URI. > Per [XML_Namespaces], applications must use the value null as the namespaceURI parameter for methods if they wish to have no namespace. Parameters namespaceURI of type DOMString The namespace_URI of the element to create.> qualifiedName of type DOMString The qualified_name of the element type to instantiate.> Return Value Element A new Element object with the following attributes: _________________________________________________ |Attribute________|Value__________________________| |Node.nodeName____|qualifiedName__________________| |Node.namespaceURI|namespaceURI___________________| |Node.prefix |prefix, extracted from | | |qualifiedName, or null if there| |_________________|is_no_prefix___________________| |Node.localName |local_name, extracted from | |_________________|qualifiedName__________________| |Element.tagName__|qualifiedName__________________| Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualifiedName contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is a malformed qualified_name, if the qualifiedName has a prefix and the namespaceURI is null, or if the qualifiedName has a prefix that is "xml" and the namespaceURI is different from "http:// www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" [XML_Namespaces], or if the qualifiedName or its prefix is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI is different from "http:// www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/", or if the namespaceURI is "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/" and neither the qualifiedName nor its prefix is "xmlns". NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Always thrown if the current document does not support the "XML" feature, since namespaces were defined by XML. createEntityReference Creates an EntityReference object. In addition, if the referenced entity is known, the child list of the EntityReference node is made the same as that of the corresponding Entity node. Note: If any descendant of the Entity node has an unbound namespace_prefix, the corresponding descendant of the created EntityReference node is also unbound; (its namespaceURI is null). The DOM Level 2 and 3 do not support any mechanism to resolve namespace prefixes in this case. Parameters name of type DOMString The name of the entity to reference.> Unlike Document.createElementNS or Document.createAttributeNS, no namespace well-formed checking is done on the entity name. Applications should invoke Document.normalizeDocument() with the parameter "namespaces" set to true in order to ensure that the entity name is namespace well-formed.> Return Value EntityReference The new EntityReference object. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. createProcessingInstruction Creates a ProcessingInstruction node given the specified name and data strings. Parameters target of type DOMString The target part of the processing instruction.> Unlike Document.createElementNS or Document.createAttributeNS, no namespace well-formed checking is done on the target name. Applications should invoke Document.normalizeDocument() with the parameter "namespaces" set to true in order to ensure that the target name is namespace well-formed.> data of type DOMString The data for the node.> Return Value ProcessingInstruction The new ProcessingInstruction object. Exceptions DOMException INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified target contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. createTextNode Creates a Text node given the specified string. Parameters data of type DOMString The data for the node.> Return Value Text The new Text object. No Exceptions getElementById introduced in DOM Level 2 Returns the Element that has an ID attribute with the given value. If no such element exists, this returns null. If more than one element has an ID attribute with that value, what is returned is undefined. > The DOM implementation is expected to use the attribute Attr.isId to determine if an attribute is of type ID. Note: Attributes with the name "ID" or "id" are not of type ID unless so defined. Parameters elementId of type DOMString The unique id value for an element.> Return Value Element The matching element or null if there is none. No Exceptions getElementsByTagName Returns a NodeList of all the Elements in document_order with a given tag name and are contained in the document. Parameters tagname of type DOMString The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags. For XML, the tagname parameter is case-sensitive, otherwise it depends on the case- sensitivity of the markup language in use.> Return Value NodeList A new NodeList object containing all the matched Elements. No Exceptions getElementsByTagNameNS introduced in DOM Level 2 Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given local name and namespace_URI in document_order. Parameters namespaceURI of type DOMString The namespace_URI of the elements to match on. The special value "*" matches all namespaces.> localName of type DOMString The local_name of the elements to match on. The special value "*" matches all local names.> Return Value NodeList A new NodeList object containing all the matched Elements. No Exceptions importNode introduced in DOM Level 2 Imports a node from another document to this document, without altering or removing the source node from the original document; this method creates a new copy of the source node. The returned node has no parent; (parentNode is null). > For all nodes, importing a node creates a node object owned by the importing document, with attribute values identical to the source node's nodeName and nodeType, plus the attributes related to namespaces (prefix, localName, and namespaceURI). As in the cloneNode operation, the source node is not altered. User data associated to the imported node is not carried over. However, if any UserDataHandlers has been specified along with the associated data these handlers will be called with the appropriate parameters before this method returns. > Additional information is copied as appropriate to the nodeType, attempting to mirror the behavior expected if a fragment of XML or HTML source was copied from one document to another, recognizing that the two documents may have different DTDs in the XML case. The following list describes the specifics for each type of node. ATTRIBUTE_NODE The ownerElement attribute is set to null and the specified flag is set to true on the generated Attr. The descendants of the source Attr are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree.> Note that the deep parameter has no effect on Attr nodes; they always carry their children with them when imported. DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE If the deep option was set to true, the descendants of the source DocumentFragment are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled under the imported DocumentFragment to form the corresponding subtree. Otherwise, this simply generates an empty DocumentFragment. DOCUMENT_NODE Document nodes cannot be imported. DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE DocumentType nodes cannot be imported. ELEMENT_NODE Specified attribute nodes of the source element are imported, and the generated Attr nodes are attached to the generated Element. Default attributes are not copied, though if the document being imported into defines default attributes for this element name, those are assigned. If the importNode deep parameter was set to true, the descendants of the source element are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. ENTITY_NODE Entity nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM.> On import, the publicId, systemId, and notationName attributes are copied. If a deep import is requested, the descendants of the the source Entity are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE Only the EntityReference itself is copied, even if a deep import is requested, since the source and destination documents might have defined the entity differently. If the document being imported into provides a definition for this entity name, its value is assigned. NOTATION_NODE Notation nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM.> On import, the publicId and systemId attributes are copied.> Note that the deep parameter has no effect on this type of nodes since they cannot have any children. PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE The imported node copies its target and data values from those of the source node.> Note that the deep parameter has no effect on this type of nodes since they cannot have any children. TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE These three types of nodes inheriting from CharacterData copy their data and length attributes from those of the source node.> Note that the deep parameter has no effect on these types of nodes since they cannot have any children. Parameters importedNode of type Node The node to import.> deep of type boolean If true, recursively import the subtree under the specified node; if false, import only the node itself, as explained above. This has no effect on nodes that cannot have any children, and on Attr, and EntityReference nodes.> Return Value Node The imported node that belongs to this Document. Exceptions DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the type of node being imported is not supported. INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if one the imported names contain an illegal character according to the XML version in use specified in the Document.xmlVersion attribute. This may happen when importing an XML 1.1 [XML_1.1] element into an XML 1.0 document, for instance. normalizeDocument introduced in DOM Level 3 This method acts as if the document was going through a save and load cycle, putting the document in a "normal" form. As a consequence, this method updates the replacement tree of EntityReference nodes and normalizes Text nodes, as defined in the method Node.normalize(). > Otherwise, the actual result depends on the features being set on the Document.domConfig object and governing what operations actually take place. Noticeably this method could also make the document namespace_well-formed according to the algorithm described in Namespace_normalization, check the character normalization, remove the CDATASection nodes, etc. See DOMConfiguration for details. // Keep in the document the information defined // in the XML Information Set (Java example) DOMConfiguration docConfig = myDocument.getDomConfig(); docConfig.setParameter("infoset", Boolean.TRUE); myDocument.normalizeDocument(); > Mutation events, when supported, are generated to reflect the changes occurring on the document. > If errors occur during the invocation of this method, such as an attempt to update a read-only_node or a Node.nodeName contains an invalid character according to the XML version in use, errors or warnings (DOMError.SEVERITY_ERROR or DOMError.SEVERITY_WARNING) will be reported using the DOMErrorHandler object associated with the "error-handler" parameter. Note this method might also report fatal errors (DOMError.SEVERITY_FATAL_ERROR) if an implementation cannot recover from an error. No Parameters No Return Value No Exceptions renameNode introduced in DOM Level 3 Rename an existing node of type ELEMENT_NODE or ATTRIBUTE_NODE. > When possible this simply changes the name of the given node, otherwise this creates a new node with the specified name and replaces the existing node with the new node as described below. > If simply changing the name of the given node is not possible, the following operations are performed: a new node is created, any registered event listener is registered on the new node, any user data attached to the old node is removed from that node, the old node is removed from its parent if it has one, the children are moved to the new node, if the renamed node is an Element its attributes are moved to the new node, the new node is inserted at the position the old node used to have in its parent's child nodes list if it has one, the user data that was attached to the old node is attached to the new node. > When the node being renamed is an Element only the specified attributes are moved, default attributes originated from the DTD are updated according to the new element name. In addition, the implementation may update default attributes from other schemas. Applications should use Document.normalizeDocument() to guarantee these attributes are up-to-date. > When the node being renamed is an Attr that is attached to an Element, the node is first removed from the Element attributes map. Then, once renamed, either by modifying the existing node or creating a new one as described above, it is put back. > In addition, * a user data even