W3C

Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification

Version 1.0

W3C Recommendation 13 November, 2000
superseded 3 November 2020

This version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2020/SPSD-DOM-Level-2-Core-20201103/
Latest version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/
Previous version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113
Editors:
Arnaud Le Hors, W3C team contact until October 1999, then IBM
Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C, team contact (from November 1999)
Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc., WG Chair
Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS (for DOM Level 1)
Jonathan Robie, Texcel Research and Software AG (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)

Abstract

This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 2 Core, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content and structure of documents. The Document Object Model Level 2 Core builds on the Document Object Model Level 1 Core.

The DOM Level 2 Core is made of a set of core interfaces to create and manipulate the structure and contents of a document. The Core also contains specialized interfaces dedicated to XML.

Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. The latest status of this document series is maintained at the W3C.

This specification is a Superseded Recommendation. A newer specification exists that is recommended for new adoption in place of this specification.

For purposes of the W3C Patent Policy, this Superseded Recommendation has the same status as an active Recommendation; it retains licensing commitments and remains available as a reference for old — and possibly still deployed — implementations, but is not recommended for future implementation. New implementations should follow the Living Standard of the DOM specification.

This document has been produced as part of the W3C DOM Activity. The authors of this document are the DOM Working Group members. Different modules of the Document Object Model have different editors.

Please send general comments about this document to the public mailing list www-dom@w3.org. An archive is available at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-dom/.

The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Information about translations of this document is available at http://www.w3.org/2000/11/DOM-Level-2-translations.

The list of known errors in this document is available at http://www.w3.org/2000/11/DOM-Level-2-errata

A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.

Table of contents

13 November, 2000

Expanded Table of Contents

13 November, 2000

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2000 World Wide Web Consortium, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All Rights Reserved.

This document is published under the W3C Document Copyright Notice and License. The bindings within this document are published under the W3C Software Copyright Notice and License. The software license requires "Notice of any changes or modifications to the W3C files, including the date changes were made." Consequently, modified versions of the DOM bindings must document that they do not conform to the W3C standard; in the case of the IDL definitions, the pragma prefix can no longer be 'w3c.org'; in the case of the Java Language binding, the package names can no longer be in the 'org.w3c' package.


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Note: This section is a copy of the W3C Software Copyright Notice and License and could be found at http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software-19980720

Copyright © 1994-2000 World Wide Web Consortium, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All Rights Reserved.

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13 November, 2000

What is the Document Object Model?

Editors
Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C
Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc., WG Chair
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 [OMGIDL], 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]).

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], [JavaIDL], [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 HTML document:

      <TABLE>
      <TBODY> 
      <TR> 
      <TD>Shady Grove</TD>
      <TD>Aeolian</TD> 
      </TR> 
      <TR>
      <TD>Over the River, Charlie</TD>        
      <TD>Dorian</TD> 
      </TR> 
      </TBODY>
      </TABLE>
   

A graphical representation of the DOM of the example table is:


graphical representation of the DOM of the example table
graphical representation of the DOM of the example table

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 root element node, and zero or more comments or processing instructions; the root 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 [Infoset].

Note: There may be some variations depending on the parser being used to build the DOM. For instance, the DOM may not contain whitespaces 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 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.

Where the Document Object Model came from

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

Entities and the DOM Core

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

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

the "&amp;" 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 "&amp;" would not be replaced by "&"; neither would the <p> be recognized as a start tag. The representation of general entities, both internal and external, are defined within the extended (XML) interfaces of DOM Level 1 [DOM Level 1].

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.

Conformance

This section explains the different levels of conformance to DOM Level 2. DOM Level 2 consists of 14 modules. It is possible to conform to DOM Level 2, or to a DOM Level 2 module.

An implementation is DOM Level 2 conformant if it supports the Core module defined in this document (see Fundamental Interfaces). An implementation conforms to a DOM Level 2 module if it supports all the interfaces for that module and the associated semantics.

Here is the complete list of DOM Level 2.0 modules and the features used by them. Feature names are case-insensitive.

Core module
defines the feature "Core".
XML module
defines the feature "XML".
HTML module
defines the feature "HTML". (see [DOM Level 2 HTML]).

Note: At time of publication, this DOM Level 2 module is not yet a W3C Recommendation.

Views module
defines the feature "Views" in [DOM Level 2 Views].
Style Sheets module
defines the feature "StyleSheets" in [DOM Level 2 Style Sheets].
CSS module
defines the feature "CSS" in [DOM Level 2 CSS].
CSS2 module
defines the feature "CSS2" in [DOM Level 2 CSS].
Events module
defines the feature "Events" in [DOM Level 2 Events].
User interface Events module
defines the feature "UIEvents" in [DOM Level 2 Events].
Mouse Events module
defines the feature "MouseEvents" in [DOM Level 2 Events].
Mutation Events module
defines the feature "MutationEvents" in [DOM Level 2 Events].
HTML Events module
defines the feature "HTMLEvents" in [DOM Level 2 Events].
Range module
defines the feature "Range" in [DOM Level 2 Range].
Traversal module
defines the feature "Traversal" in [DOM Level 2 Traversal].

A DOM implementation must not return "true" to the 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 2.0 is "2.0".

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 1 interfaces were extended to provide both Level 1 and Level 2 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 Document2 class which inherits from Document and contains the new methods and attributes.

DOM Level 2 does not specify multithreading mechanisms.

13 November, 2000

1. Document Object Model Core

Editors
Arnaud Le Hors, IBM
Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS (for DOM Level 1)
Lauren Wood, SoftQuad, Inc. (for DOM Level 1)
Mike Champion, ArborText (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

This section defines a set of objects and interfaces for accessing and manipulating document objects. The functionality specified in this section (the Core functionality) is sufficient to allow software developers and web script authors to access and manipulate parsed HTML and XML content inside conforming products. The DOM Core API also allows creation and population of a Document object using only DOM API calls; loading a Document and saving it persistently is left to the product that implements the DOM API.

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:

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 getElementsByTagName method of the Element interface, 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 DOM Level 2 API does not define a standard way to create DOMImplementation objects; DOM implementations must provide some proprietary way of bootstrapping these DOM interfaces, and then all other objects can be built from there.

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 and 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 nodeName attribute on the Node interface, there is still a 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.

1.1.5. The DOMString type

To ensure interoperability, the DOM specifies the following:

  • Type Definition DOMString

    A DOMString is a sequence of 16-bit units.


    IDL Definition
    valuetype DOMString sequence<unsigned short>;
    

  • Applications must encode DOMString using UTF-16 (defined in [Unicode] and Amendment 1 of [ISO/IEC 10646]).
    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-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).

    Note: Even though the DOM defines the name of the string type to be DOMString, bindings may use different names. For example for Java, DOMString is bound to the String type because it also uses UTF-16 as its encoding.

Note: As of August 2000, the OMG IDL specification ([OMGIDL]) 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.

1.1.6. The DOMTimeStamp type

To ensure interoperability, the DOM specifies the following:

  • Type Definition DOMTimeStamp

    A DOMTimeStamp represents a number of milliseconds.


    IDL Definition
    typedef unsigned long long DOMTimeStamp;
    

  • Note: Even though the DOM uses the type DOMTimeStamp, bindings may use different types. For example for Java, DOMTimeStamp is bound to the long type. In ECMAScript, TimeStamp is bound to the Date type because the range of the integer type is too small.

1.1.7. String comparisons in the DOM

The DOM has many interfaces that imply string matching. HTML processors generally assume an uppercase (less often, lowercase) normalization of names for such things as elements, while XML is explicitly case sensitive. For the purposes of the DOM, string matching is performed purely by binary comparison of the 16-bit units of the DOMString. In addition, the DOM assumes that any case normalizations take place in the processor, before the DOM structures are built.

Note: Besides case folding, there are additional normalizations that can be applied to text. The W3C I18N Working Group is in the process of defining exactly which normalizations are necessary, and where they should be applied. The W3C I18N Working Group expects to require early normalization, which means that data read into the DOM is assumed to already be normalized. The DOM and applications built on top of it in this case only have to assure that text remains normalized when being changed. For further details, please see [Charmod].

1.1.8. XML Namespaces

The DOM Level 2 supports XML namespaces [Namespaces] by augmenting several interfaces of the DOM Level 1 Core to allow creating and manipulating elements and attributes associated to a namespace.

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.

DOM Level 2 doesn't perform any URI normalization or canonicalization. The URIs given to the DOM are assumed to be valid (e.g., characters such as whitespaces 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. Note that because the DOM does no lexical checking, the empty string will be treated as a real namespace URI in DOM Level 2 methods. Applications must use the value null as the namespaceURI parameter for methods if they wish to have no namespace.

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

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

The new methods, such as createElementNS and createAttributeNS of the Document interface, 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 createElement and createAttribute. 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 nodeName. On the contrary, the DOM Level 2 methods related to namespaces, identify attribute nodes by their namespaceURI and localName. Because of this fundamental difference, mixing both sets of methods can lead to unpredictable results. In particular, using setAttributeNS, an element may have two attributes (or more) that have the same nodeName, but different namespaceURIs. Calling getAttribute with that nodeName could then return any of those attributes. The result depends on the implementation. Similarly, using setAttributeNode, one can set two attributes (or more) that have different nodeNames but the same prefix and namespaceURI. In this case getAttributeNodeNS 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, setAttribute and setAttributeNS affect the node that getAttribute and getAttributeNS, respectively, return.

1.2. Fundamental Interfaces

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 hasFeature(feature, version) method of the DOMImplementation interface with parameter values "Core" and "2.0" (respectively) to determine whether or not this module is supported by the implementation. Any implementation that conforms to DOM Level 2 or a DOM Level 2 module must conform to the Core module. Please refer to additional information about conformance in this specification.

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.

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


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

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. See production 2 in the XML specification for the definition of a legal character, and production 5 for the definition of a legal name character.
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.
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
If a node is used in a different document than the one that created it (that doesn't support it)
Interface DOMImplementation

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


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

Methods
createDocument introduced in DOM Level 2
Creates an XML Document object of the specified type with its document element. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the document element to create.
qualifiedName of type DOMString
The qualified name of the document element to be created.
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.

Exceptions

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, 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" [Namespaces].

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if doctype has already been used with a different document or was created from a different implementation.

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. It is expected that a future version of the DOM will provide a way for populating a DocumentType.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
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.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed.

hasFeature
Test if the DOM implementation implements a specific feature.
Parameters
feature of type DOMString
The name of the feature to test (case-insensitive). The values used by DOM features are defined throughout the DOM Level 2 specifications and listed in the Conformance section. The name must be an XML name. To avoid possible conflicts, as a convention, names referring to features defined outside the DOM specification should be made unique by reversing the name of the Internet domain name of the person (or the organization that the person belongs to) who defines the feature, component by component, and using this as a prefix. For instance, the W3C SVG Working Group defines the feature "org.w3c.dom.svg".
version of type DOMString
This is the version number of the feature to test. In Level 2, the string can be either "2.0" or "1.0". If the version is not specified, supporting any version of the feature causes the method to return true.
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 insertBefore and appendChild.


IDL Definition
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.


IDL Definition
interface Document : Node {
  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);
};

Attributes
doctype of type DocumentType, readonly
The Document Type Declaration (see DocumentType) associated with this document. For HTML documents as well as XML documents without a document type declaration this returns null. The DOM Level 2 does not support editing the Document Type Declaration. docType cannot be altered in any way, including through the use of methods inherited from the Node interface, such as insertNode or removeNode.
documentElement of type Element, readonly
This is a convenience attribute that allows direct access to the child node that is the root element of the document. For HTML documents, this is the element with the tagName "HTML".
implementation of type DOMImplementation, readonly
The DOMImplementation object that handles this document. A DOM application may use objects from multiple implementations.
Methods
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.

createAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Creates an attribute of the given qualified name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
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 qualified name contains an illegal character.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, 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", or if the qualifiedName is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI is different from "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/".

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
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. For HTML, the tagName parameter may be provided in any case, but it must be mapped to the canonical uppercase form 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.

createElementNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Creates an element of the given qualified name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
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 qualified name contains an illegal character.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, 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" [Namespaces].

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 does not support any mechanism to resolve namespace prefixes.

Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the entity to reference.
Return Value
Exceptions

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.

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.
data of type DOMString
The data for the node.
Return Value
Exceptions

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified target contains an illegal character.

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 whose ID is given by elementId. If no such element exists, returns null. Behavior is not defined if more than one element has this ID.

Note: The DOM implementation must have information that says which attributes are of type ID. Attributes with the name "ID" are not of type ID unless so defined. Implementations that do not know whether attributes are of type ID or not are expected to return null.

Parameters
elementId of type DOMString
The unique id value for an element.
Return Value

Element

The matching element.

No Exceptions
getElementsByTagName
Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given tag name in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.
Parameters
tagname of type DOMString
The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags.
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 the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.
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. The returned node has no parent; (parentNode is null). The source node is not altered or removed from the original document; this method creates a new copy of the source node.
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 on a Node, the source node is not altered.
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 element are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled 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 Notation nodes since they never have any children.
PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
The imported node copies its target and data values from those of the source node.
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.
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 Attr, EntityReference, and Notation 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.

Interface Node

The Node interface is the primary datatype for the entire Document Object Model. It represents a single node in the document tree. While all objects implementing the Node interface expose methods for dealing with children, not all objects implementing the Node interface may have children. For example, Text nodes may not have children, and adding children to such nodes results in a DOMException being raised.

The attributes nodeName, nodeValue and attributes are included as a mechanism to get at node information without casting down to the specific derived interface. In cases where there is no obvious mapping of these attributes for a specific nodeType (e.g., nodeValue for an Element or attributes for a Comment), this returns null. Note that the specialized interfaces may contain additional and more convenient mechanisms to get and set the relevant information.


IDL Definition
interface Node {

  // NodeType
  const unsigned short      ELEMENT_NODE                   = 1;
  const unsigned short      ATTRIBUTE_NODE                 = 2;
  const unsigned short      TEXT_NODE                      = 3;
  const unsigned short      CDATA_SECTION_NODE             = 4;
  const unsigned short      ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE          = 5;
  const unsigned short      ENTITY_NODE                    = 6;
  const unsigned short      PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE    = 7;
  const unsigned short      COMMENT_NODE                   = 8;
  const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_NODE                  = 9;
  const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE             = 10;
  const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE         = 11;
  const unsigned short      NOTATION_NODE                  = 12;

  readonly attribute DOMString        nodeName;
           attribute DOMString        nodeValue;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting
                                        // raises(DOMException) on retrieval

  readonly attribute unsigned short   nodeType;
  readonly attribute Node             parentNode;
  readonly attribute NodeList         childNodes;
  readonly attribute Node             firstChild;
  readonly attribute Node             lastChild;
  readonly attribute Node             previousSibling;
  readonly attribute Node             nextSibling;
  readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     attributes;
  // Modified in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute Document         ownerDocument;
  Node               insertBefore(in Node newChild, 
                                  in Node refChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Node               replaceChild(in Node newChild, 
                                  in Node oldChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Node               removeChild(in Node oldChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Node               appendChild(in Node newChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  boolean            hasChildNodes();
  Node               cloneNode(in boolean deep);
  // Modified in DOM Level 2:
  void               normalize();
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  boolean            isSupported(in DOMString feature, 
                                 in DOMString version);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute DOMString        namespaceURI;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
           attribute DOMString        prefix;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute DOMString        localName;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  boolean            hasAttributes();
};

Definition group NodeType

An integer indicating which type of node this is.

Note: Numeric codes up to 200 are reserved to W3C for possible future use.

Defined Constants
ATTRIBUTE_NODE
The node is an Attr.
CDATA_SECTION_NODE
The node is a CDATASection.
COMMENT_NODE
The node is a Comment.
DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
The node is a DocumentFragment.
DOCUMENT_NODE
The node is a Document.
DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
The node is a DocumentType.
ELEMENT_NODE
The node is an Element.
ENTITY_NODE
The node is an Entity.
ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
The node is an EntityReference.
NOTATION_NODE
The node is a Notation.
PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
The node is a ProcessingInstruction.
TEXT_NODE
The node is a Text node.

The values of nodeName, nodeValue, and attributes vary according to the node type as follows:

Interface nodeName nodeValue attributes
Attr name of attribute value of attribute null
CDATASection #cdata-section content of the CDATA Section null
Comment #comment content of the comment null
Document #document null null
DocumentFragment #document-fragment null null
DocumentType document type name null null
Element tag name null NamedNodeMap
Entity entity name null null
EntityReference name of entity referenced null null
Notation notation name null null
ProcessingInstruction target entire content excluding the target null
Text #text content of the text node null
Attributes
attributes of type NamedNodeMap, readonly
A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes of this node (if it is an Element) or null otherwise.
childNodes of type NodeList, readonly
A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no children, this is a NodeList containing no nodes.
firstChild of type Node, readonly
The first child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.
lastChild of type Node, readonly
The last child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.
localName of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
For nodes of any type other than ELEMENT_NODE and ATTRIBUTE_NODE and nodes created with a DOM Level 1 method, such as createElement from the Document interface, this is always null.
namespaceURI of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
The namespace URI of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
This is not a computed value that is the result of a namespace lookup based on an examination of the namespace declarations in scope. It is merely the namespace URI given at creation time.
For nodes of any type other than ELEMENT_NODE and ATTRIBUTE_NODE and nodes created with a DOM Level 1 method, such as createElement from the Document interface, this is always null.

Note: Per the Namespaces in XML Specification [Namespaces] an attribute does not inherit its namespace from the element it is attached to. If an attribute is not explicitly given a namespace, it simply has no namespace.

nextSibling of type Node, readonly
The node immediately following this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.
nodeName of type DOMString, readonly
The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
nodeType of type unsigned short, readonly
A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.
nodeValue of type DOMString
The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect.
Exceptions on setting

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.

Exceptions on retrieval

DOMException

DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters than fit in a DOMString variable on the implementation platform.

ownerDocument of type Document, readonly, modified in DOM Level 2
The Document object associated with this node. This is also the Document object used to create new nodes. When this node is a Document or a DocumentType which is not used with any Document yet, this is null.
parentNode of type Node, readonly
The parent of this node. All nodes, except Attr, Document, DocumentFragment, Entity, and Notation may have a parent. However, if a node has just been created and not yet added to the tree, or if it has been removed from the tree, this is null.
prefix of type DOMString, introduced in DOM Level 2
The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
Note that setting this attribute, when permitted, changes the nodeName attribute, which holds the qualified name, as well as the tagName and name attributes of the Element and Attr interfaces, when applicable.
Note also that changing the prefix of an attribute that is known to have a default value, does not make a new attribute with the default value and the original prefix appear, since the namespaceURI and localName do not change.
For nodes of any type other than ELEMENT_NODE and ATTRIBUTE_NODE and nodes created with a DOM Level 1 method, such as createElement from the Document interface, this is always null.
Exceptions on setting

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix contains an illegal character.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix is malformed, if the namespaceURI of this node is null, if the specified prefix is "xml" and the namespaceURI of this node is different from "http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace", if this node is an attribute and the specified prefix is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI of this node is different from "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/", or if this node is an attribute and the qualifiedName of this node is "xmlns" [Namespaces].

previousSibling of type Node, readonly
The node immediately preceding this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.
Methods
appendChild
Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.
Parameters
newChild of type Node
The node to add.
If it is a DocumentFragment object, the entire contents of the document fragment are moved into the child list of this node
Return Value

Node

The node added.

Exceptions

DOMException

HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to append is one of this node's ancestors.

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

cloneNode
Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes. The duplicate node has no parent; (parentNode is null.).
Cloning an Element copies all attributes and their values, including those generated by the XML processor to represent defaulted attributes, but this method does not copy any text it contains unless it is a deep clone, since the text is contained in a child Text node. Cloning an Attribute directly, as opposed to be cloned as part of an Element cloning operation, returns a specified attribute (specified is true). Cloning any other type of node simply returns a copy of this node.
Note that cloning an immutable subtree results in a mutable copy, but the children of an EntityReference clone are readonly. In addition, clones of unspecified Attr nodes are specified. And, cloning Document, DocumentType, Entity, and Notation nodes is implementation dependent.
Parameters
deep of type boolean
If true, recursively clone the subtree under the specified node; if false, clone only the node itself (and its attributes, if it is an Element).
Return Value

Node

The duplicate node.

No Exceptions
hasAttributes introduced in DOM Level 2
Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes.
Return Value

boolean

true if this node has any attributes, false otherwise.

No Parameters
No Exceptions
hasChildNodes
Returns whether this node has any children.
Return Value

boolean

true if this node has any children, false otherwise.

No Parameters
No Exceptions
insertBefore
Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild. If refChild is null, insert newChild at the end of the list of children.
If newChild is a DocumentFragment object, all of its children are inserted, in the same order, before refChild. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.
Parameters
newChild of type Node
The node to insert.
refChild of type Node
The reference node, i.e., the node before which the new node must be inserted.
Return Value

Node

The node being inserted.

Exceptions

DOMException

HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to insert is one of this node's ancestors.

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly or if the parent of the node being inserted is readonly.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if refChild is not a child of this node.

isSupported introduced in DOM Level 2
Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node.
Parameters
feature of type DOMString
The name of the feature to test. This is the same name which can be passed to the method hasFeature on DOMImplementation.
version of type DOMString
This is the version number of the feature to test. In Level 2, version 1, this is the string "2.0". If the version is not specified, supporting any version of the feature will cause the method to return true.
Return Value

boolean

Returns true if the specified feature is supported on this node, false otherwise.

No Exceptions
normalize modified in DOM Level 2
Puts all Text nodes in the full depth of the sub-tree underneath this Node, including attribute nodes, into a "normal" form where only structure (e.g., elements, comments, processing instructions, CDATA sections, and entity references) separates Text nodes, i.e., there are neither adjacent Text nodes nor empty Text nodes. This can be used to ensure that the DOM view of a document is the same as if it were saved and re-loaded, and is useful when operations (such as XPointer [XPointer] lookups) that depend on a particular document tree structure are to be used.

Note: In cases where the document contains CDATASections, the normalize operation alone may not be sufficient, since XPointers do not differentiate between Text nodes and CDATASection nodes.

No Parameters
No Return Value
No Exceptions
removeChild
Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, and returns it.
Parameters
oldChild of type Node
The node being removed.
Return Value

Node

The node removed.

Exceptions

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

replaceChild
Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns the oldChild node.
If newChild is a DocumentFragment object, oldChild is replaced by all of the DocumentFragment children, which are inserted in the same order. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.
Parameters
newChild of type Node
The new node to put in the child list.
oldChild of type Node
The node being replaced in the list.
Return Value

Node

The node replaced.

Exceptions

DOMException

HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to put in is one of this node's ancestors.

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node or the parent of the new node is readonly.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

Interface NodeList

The NodeList interface provides the abstraction of an ordered collection of nodes, without defining or constraining how this collection is implemented. NodeList objects in the DOM are live.

The items in the NodeList are accessible via an integral index, starting from 0.


IDL Definition
interface NodeList {
  Node               item(in unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
};

Attributes
length of type unsigned long, readonly
The number of nodes 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 nodes in the list, this returns null.
Parameters
index of type unsigned long
Index into the collection.
Return Value

Node

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

No Exceptions
Interface NamedNodeMap

Objects implementing the NamedNodeMap interface are used to represent collections of nodes that can be accessed by name. Note that NamedNodeMap does not inherit from NodeList; NamedNodeMaps are not maintained in any particular order. Objects contained in an object implementing NamedNodeMap may also be accessed by an ordinal index, but this is simply to allow convenient enumeration of the contents of a NamedNodeMap, and does not imply that the DOM specifies an order to these Nodes.

NamedNodeMap objects in the DOM are live.


IDL Definition
interface NamedNodeMap {
  Node               getNamedItem(in DOMString name);
  Node               setNamedItem(in Node arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Node               removeNamedItem(in DOMString name)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Node               item(in unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Node               getNamedItemNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                    in DOMString localName);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Node               setNamedItemNS(in Node arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Node               removeNamedItemNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                       in DOMString localName)
                                        raises(DOMException);
};

Attributes
length of type unsigned long, readonly
The number of nodes in this map. The range of valid child node indices is 0 to length-1 inclusive.
Methods
getNamedItem
Retrieves a node specified by name.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The nodeName of a node to retrieve.
Return Value

Node

A Node (of any type) with the specified nodeName, or null if it does not identify any node in this map.

No Exceptions
getNamedItemNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Retrieves a node specified by local name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the node to retrieve.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the node to retrieve.
Return Value

Node

A Node (of any type) with the specified local name and namespace URI, or null if they do not identify any node in this map.

No Exceptions
item
Returns the indexth item in the map. If index is greater than or equal to the number of nodes in this map, this returns null.
Parameters
index of type unsigned long
Index into this map.
Return Value

Node

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

No Exceptions
removeNamedItem
Removes a node specified by name. When this map contains the attributes attached to an element, if the removed attribute is known to have a default value, an attribute immediately appears containing the default value as well as the corresponding namespace URI, local name, and prefix when applicable.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The nodeName of the node to remove.
Return Value

Node

The node removed from this map if a node with such a name exists.

Exceptions

DOMException

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if there is no node named name in this map.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly.

removeNamedItemNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Removes a node specified by local name and namespace URI. A removed attribute may be known to have a default value when this map contains the attributes attached to an element, as returned by the attributes attribute of the Node interface. If so, an attribute immediately appears containing the default value as well as the corresponding namespace URI, local name, and prefix when applicable.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the node to remove.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the node to remove.
Return Value

Node

The node removed from this map if a node with such a local name and namespace URI exists.

Exceptions

DOMException

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if there is no node with the specified namespaceURI and localName in this map.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly.

setNamedItem
Adds a node using its nodeName attribute. If a node with that name is already present in this map, it is replaced by the new one.
As the nodeName attribute is used to derive the name which the node must be stored under, multiple nodes of certain types (those that have a "special" string value) cannot be stored as the names would clash. This is seen as preferable to allowing nodes to be aliased.
Parameters
arg of type Node
A node to store in this map. The node will later be accessible using the value of its nodeName attribute.
Return Value

Node

If the new Node replaces an existing node the replaced Node is returned, otherwise null is returned.

Exceptions

DOMException

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if arg was created from a different document than the one that created this map.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly.

INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if arg is an Attr that is already an attribute of another Element object. The DOM user must explicitly clone Attr nodes to re-use them in other elements.

setNamedItemNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Adds a node using its namespaceURI and localName. If a node with that namespace URI and that local name is already present in this map, it is replaced by the new one.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
arg of type Node
A node to store in this map. The node will later be accessible using the value of its namespaceURI and localName attributes.
Return Value

Node

If the new Node replaces an existing node the replaced Node is returned, otherwise null is returned.

Exceptions

DOMException

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if arg was created from a different document than the one that created this map.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly.

INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if arg is an Attr that is already an attribute of another Element object. The DOM user must explicitly clone Attr nodes to re-use them in other elements.

Interface CharacterData

The CharacterData interface extends Node with a set of attributes and methods for accessing character data in the DOM. For clarity this set is defined here rather than on each object that uses these attributes and methods. No DOM objects correspond directly to CharacterData, though Text and others do inherit the interface from it. All offsets in this interface start from 0.

As explained in the DOMString interface, text strings in the DOM are represented in UTF-16, i.e. as a sequence of 16-bit units. In the following, the term 16-bit units is used whenever necessary to indicate that indexing on CharacterData is done in 16-bit units.


IDL Definition
interface CharacterData : Node {
           attribute DOMString        data;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting
                                        // raises(DOMException) on retrieval

  readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
  DOMString          substringData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                   in unsigned long count)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  void               appendData(in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  void               insertData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  void               deleteData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                in unsigned long count)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  void               replaceData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                 in unsigned long count, 
                                 in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
};

Attributes
data of type DOMString
The character data of the node that implements this interface. The DOM implementation may not put arbitrary limits on the amount of data that may be stored in a CharacterData node. However, implementation limits may mean that the entirety of a node's data may not fit into a single DOMString. In such cases, the user may call substringData to retrieve the data in appropriately sized pieces.
Exceptions on setting

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.

Exceptions on retrieval

DOMException

DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters than fit in a DOMString variable on the implementation platform.

length of type unsigned long, readonly
The number of 16-bit units that are available through data and the substringData method below. This may have the value zero, i.e., CharacterData nodes may be empty.
Methods
appendData
Append the string to the end of the character data of the node. Upon success, data provides access to the concatenation of data and the DOMString specified.
Parameters
arg of type DOMString
The DOMString to append.
Exceptions

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
deleteData
Remove a range of 16-bit units from the node. Upon success, data and length reflect the change.
Parameters
offset of type unsigned long
The offset from which to start removing.
count of type unsigned long
The number of 16-bit units to delete. If the sum of offset and count exceeds length then all 16-bit units from offset to the end of the data are deleted.
Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data, or if the specified count is negative.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
insertData
Insert a string at the specified 16-bit unit offset.
Parameters
offset of type unsigned long
The character offset at which to insert.
arg of type DOMString
The DOMString to insert.
Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
replaceData
Replace the characters starting at the specified 16-bit unit offset with the specified string.
Parameters
offset of type unsigned long
The offset from which to start replacing.
count of type unsigned long
The number of 16-bit units to replace. If the sum of offset and count exceeds length, then all 16-bit units to the end of the data are replaced; (i.e., the effect is the same as a remove method call with the same range, followed by an append method invocation).
arg of type DOMString
The DOMString with which the range must be replaced.
Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data, or if the specified count is negative.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
substringData
Extracts a range of data from the node.
Parameters
offset of type unsigned long
Start offset of substring to extract.
count of type unsigned long
The number of 16-bit units to extract.
Return Value

DOMString

The specified substring. If the sum of offset and count exceeds the length, then all 16-bit units to the end of the data are returned.

Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data, or if the specified count is negative.

DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified range of text does not fit into a DOMString.

Interface Attr

The Attr interface represents an attribute in an Element object. Typically the allowable values for the attribute are defined in a document type definition.

Attr objects inherit the Node interface, but since they are not actually child nodes of the element they describe, the DOM does not consider them part of the document tree. Thus, the Node attributes parentNode, previousSibling, and nextSibling have a null value for Attr objects. The DOM takes the view that attributes are properties of elements rather than having a separate identity from the elements they are associated with; this should make it more efficient to implement such features as default attributes associated with all elements of a given type. Furthermore, Attr nodes may not be immediate children of a DocumentFragment. However, they can be associated with Element nodes contained within a DocumentFragment. In short, users and implementors of the DOM need to be aware that Attr nodes have some things in common with other objects inheriting the Node interface, but they also are quite distinct.

The attribute's effective value is determined as follows: if this attribute has been explicitly assigned any value, that value is the attribute's effective value; otherwise, if there is a declaration for this attribute, and that declaration includes a default value, then that default value is the attribute's effective value; otherwise, the attribute does not exist on this element in the structure model until it has been explicitly added. Note that the nodeValue attribute on the Attr instance can also be used to retrieve the string version of the attribute's value(s).

In XML, where the value of an attribute can contain entity references, the child nodes of the Attr node may be either Text or EntityReference nodes (when these are in use; see the description of EntityReference for discussion). Because the DOM Core is not aware of attribute types, it treats all attribute values as simple strings, even if the DTD or schema declares them as having tokenized types.


IDL Definition
interface Attr : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        name;
  readonly attribute boolean          specified;
           attribute DOMString        value;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute Element          ownerElement;
};

Attributes
name of type DOMString, readonly
Returns the name of this attribute.
ownerElement of type Element, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
The Element node this attribute is attached to or null if this attribute is not in use.
specified of type boolean, readonly
If this attribute was explicitly given a value in the original document, this is true; otherwise, it is false. Note that the implementation is in charge of this attribute, not the user. If the user changes the value of the attribute (even if it ends up having the same value as the default value) then the specified flag is automatically flipped to true. To re-specify the attribute as the default value from the DTD, the user must delete the attribute. The implementation will then make a new attribute available with specified set to false and the default value (if one exists).
In summary:
  • If the attribute has an assigned value in the document then specified is true, and the value is the assigned value.
  • If the attribute has no assigned value in the document and has a default value in the DTD, then specified is false, and the value is the default value in the DTD.
  • If the attribute has no assigned value in the document and has a value of #IMPLIED in the DTD, then the attribute does not appear in the structure model of the document.
  • If the ownerElement attribute is null (i.e. because it was just created or was set to null by the various removal and cloning operations) specified is true.

value of type DOMString
On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string. Character and general entity references are replaced with their values. See also the method getAttribute on the Element interface.
On setting, this creates a Text node with the unparsed contents of the string. I.e. any characters that an XML processor would recognize as markup are instead treated as literal text. See also the method setAttribute on the Element interface.
Exceptions on setting

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.

Interface Element

The Element interface represents an element in an HTML or XML document. Elements may have attributes associated with them; since the Element interface inherits from Node, the generic Node interface attribute attributes may be used to retrieve the set of all attributes for an element. There are methods on the Element interface to retrieve either an Attr object by name or an attribute value by name. In XML, where an attribute value may contain entity references, an Attr object should be retrieved to examine the possibly fairly complex sub-tree representing the attribute value. On the other hand, in HTML, where all attributes have simple string values, methods to directly access an attribute value can safely be used as a convenience.

Note: In DOM Level 2, the method normalize is inherited from the Node interface where it was moved.


IDL Definition
interface Element : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        tagName;
  DOMString          getAttribute(in DOMString name);
  void               setAttribute(in DOMString name, 
                                  in DOMString value)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  void               removeAttribute(in DOMString name)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Attr               getAttributeNode(in DOMString name);
  Attr               setAttributeNode(in Attr newAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  Attr               removeAttributeNode(in Attr oldAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  NodeList           getElementsByTagName(in DOMString name);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  DOMString          getAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                    in DOMString localName);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  void               setAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                    in DOMString qualifiedName, 
                                    in DOMString value)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  void               removeAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                       in DOMString localName)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Attr               getAttributeNodeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                        in DOMString localName);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  Attr               setAttributeNodeNS(in Attr newAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  NodeList           getElementsByTagNameNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                            in DOMString localName);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  boolean            hasAttribute(in DOMString name);
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  boolean            hasAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                    in DOMString localName);
};

Attributes
tagName of type DOMString, readonly
The name of the element. For example, in:
<elementExample id="demo"> 
        ... 
</elementExample> ,
tagName has the value "elementExample". Note that this is case-preserving in XML, as are all of the operations of the DOM. The HTML DOM returns the tagName of an HTML element in the canonical uppercase form, regardless of the case in the source HTML document.
Methods
getAttribute
Retrieves an attribute value by name.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the attribute to retrieve.
Return Value

DOMString

The Attr value as a string, or the empty string if that attribute does not have a specified or default value.

No Exceptions
getAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Retrieves an attribute value by local name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the attribute to retrieve.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the attribute to retrieve.
Return Value

DOMString

The Attr value as a string, or the empty string if that attribute does not have a specified or default value.

No Exceptions
getAttributeNode
Retrieves an attribute node by name.
To retrieve an attribute node by qualified name and namespace URI, use the getAttributeNodeNS method.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name (nodeName) of the attribute to retrieve.
Return Value

Attr

The Attr node with the specified name (nodeName) or null if there is no such attribute.

No Exceptions
getAttributeNodeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Retrieves an Attr node by local name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the attribute to retrieve.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the attribute to retrieve.
Return Value

Attr

The Attr node with the specified attribute local name and namespace URI or null if there is no such attribute.

No Exceptions
getElementsByTagName
Returns a NodeList of all descendant Elements with a given tag name, in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of this Element tree.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags.
Return Value

NodeList

A list of matching Element nodes.

No Exceptions
getElementsByTagNameNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Returns a NodeList of all the descendant Elements with a given local name and namespace URI in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of this Element tree.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
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
hasAttribute introduced in DOM Level 2
Returns true when an attribute with a given name is specified on this element or has a default value, false otherwise.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the attribute to look for.
Return Value

boolean

true if an attribute with the given name is specified on this element or has a default value, false otherwise.

No Exceptions
hasAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Returns true when an attribute with a given local name and namespace URI is specified on this element or has a default value, false otherwise. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the attribute to look for.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the attribute to look for.
Return Value

boolean

true if an attribute with the given local name and namespace URI is specified or has a default value on this element, false otherwise.

No Exceptions
removeAttribute
Removes an attribute by name. If the removed attribute is known to have a default value, an attribute immediately appears containing the default value as well as the corresponding namespace URI, local name, and prefix when applicable.
To remove an attribute by local name and namespace URI, use the removeAttributeNS method.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the attribute to remove.
Exceptions

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
removeAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Removes an attribute by local name and namespace URI. If the removed attribute has a default value it is immediately replaced. The replacing attribute has the same namespace URI and local name, as well as the original prefix.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the attribute to remove.
localName of type DOMString
The local name of the attribute to remove.
Exceptions

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
removeAttributeNode
Removes the specified attribute node. If the removed Attr has a default value it is immediately replaced. The replacing attribute has the same namespace URI and local name, as well as the original prefix, when applicable.
Parameters
oldAttr of type Attr
The Attr node to remove from the attribute list.
Return Value

Attr

The Attr node that was removed.

Exceptions

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldAttr is not an attribute of the element.

setAttribute
Adds a new attribute. If an attribute with that name is already present in the element, its value is changed to be that of the value parameter. This value is a simple string; it is not parsed as it is being set. So any markup (such as syntax to be recognized as an entity reference) is treated as literal text, and needs to be appropriately escaped by the implementation when it is written out. In order to assign an attribute value that contains entity references, the user must create an Attr node plus any Text and EntityReference nodes, build the appropriate subtree, and use setAttributeNode to assign it as the value of an attribute.
To set an attribute with a qualified name and namespace URI, use the setAttributeNS method.
Parameters
name of type DOMString
The name of the attribute to create or alter.
value of type DOMString
Value to set in string form.
Exceptions

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

No Return Value
setAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Adds a new attribute. If an attribute with the same local name and namespace URI is already present on the element, its prefix is changed to be the prefix part of the qualifiedName, and its value is changed to be the value parameter. This value is a simple string; it is not parsed as it is being set. So any markup (such as syntax to be recognized as an entity reference) is treated as literal text, and needs to be appropriately escaped by the implementation when it is written out. In order to assign an attribute value that contains entity references, the user must create an Attr node plus any Text and EntityReference nodes, build the appropriate subtree, and use setAttributeNodeNS or setAttributeNode to assign it as the value of an attribute.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
namespaceURI of type DOMString
The namespace URI of the attribute to create or alter.
qualifiedName of type DOMString
The qualified name of the attribute to create or alter.
value of type DOMString
The value to set in string form.
Exceptions

DOMException

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, 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", or if the qualifiedName is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI is different from "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/".

No Return Value
setAttributeNode
Adds a new attribute node. If an attribute with that name (nodeName) is already present in the element, it is replaced by the new one.
To add a new attribute node with a qualified name and namespace URI, use the setAttributeNodeNS method.
Parameters
newAttr of type Attr
The Attr node to add to the attribute list.
Return Value

Attr

If the newAttr attribute replaces an existing attribute, the replaced Attr node is returned, otherwise null is returned.

Exceptions

DOMException

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newAttr was created from a different document than the one that created the element.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if newAttr is already an attribute of another Element object. The DOM user must explicitly clone Attr nodes to re-use them in other elements.

setAttributeNodeNS introduced in DOM Level 2
Adds a new attribute. If an attribute with that local name and that namespace URI is already present in the element, it is replaced by the new one.
HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.
Parameters
newAttr of type Attr
The Attr node to add to the attribute list.
Return Value

Attr

If the newAttr attribute replaces an existing attribute with the same local name and namespace URI, the replaced Attr node is returned, otherwise null is returned.

Exceptions

DOMException

WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newAttr was created from a different document than the one that created the element.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if newAttr is already an attribute of another Element object. The DOM user must explicitly clone Attr nodes to re-use them in other elements.

Interface Text

The Text interface inherits from CharacterData and represents the textual content (termed character data in XML) of an Element or Attr. If there is no markup inside an element's content, the text is contained in a single object implementing the Text interface that is the only child of the element. If there is markup, it is parsed into the information items (elements, comments, etc.) and Text nodes that form the list of children of the element.

When a document is first made available via the DOM, there is only one Text node for each block of text. Users may create adjacent Text nodes that represent the contents of a given element without any intervening markup, but should be aware that there is no way to represent the separations between these nodes in XML or HTML, so they will not (in general) persist between DOM editing sessions. The normalize() method on Node merges any such adjacent Text objects into a single node for each block of text.


IDL Definition
interface Text : CharacterData {
  Text               splitText(in unsigned long offset)
                                        raises(DOMException);
};

Methods
splitText
Breaks this node into two nodes at the specified offset, keeping both in the tree as siblings. After being split, this node will contain all the content up to the offset point. A new node of the same type, which contains all the content at and after the offset point, is returned. If the original node had a parent node, the new node is inserted as the next sibling of the original node. When the offset is equal to the length of this node, the new node has no data.
Parameters
offset of type unsigned long
The 16-bit unit offset at which to split, starting from 0.
Return Value

Text

The new node, of the same type as this node.

Exceptions

DOMException

INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

Interface Comment

This interface inherits from CharacterData and represents the content of a comment, i.e., all the characters between the starting '<!--' and ending '-->'. Note that this is the definition of a comment in XML, and, in practice, HTML, although some HTML tools may implement the full SGML comment structure.


IDL Definition
interface Comment : CharacterData {
};

1.3. Extended Interfaces

The interfaces defined here form part of the DOM Core specification, but objects that expose these interfaces will never be encountered in a DOM implementation that deals only with HTML. As such, HTML-only DOM implementations [DOM Level 2 HTML] do not need to have objects that implement these interfaces.

The interfaces found within this section are not mandatory. A DOM application may use the hasFeature(feature, version) method of the DOMImplementation interface with parameter values "XML" and "2.0" (respectively) to determine whether or not this module is supported by the implementation. In order to fully support this module, an implementation must also support the "Core" feature defined in Fundamental Interfaces. Please refer to additional information about Conformance in this specification.

Interface CDATASection

CDATA sections are used to escape blocks of text containing characters that would otherwise be regarded as markup. The only delimiter that is recognized in a CDATA section is the "]]>" string that ends the CDATA section. CDATA sections cannot be nested. Their primary purpose is for including material such as XML fragments, without needing to escape all the delimiters.

The DOMString attribute of the Text node holds the text that is contained by the CDATA section. Note that this may contain characters that need to be escaped outside of CDATA sections and that, depending on the character encoding ("charset") chosen for serialization, it may be impossible to write out some characters as part of a CDATA section.

The CDATASection interface inherits from the CharacterData interface through the Text interface. Adjacent CDATASection nodes are not merged by use of the normalize method of the Node interface.

Note: Because no markup is recognized within a CDATASection, character numeric references cannot be used as an escape mechanism when serializing. Therefore, action needs to be taken when serializing a CDATASection with a character encoding where some of the contained characters cannot be represented. Failure to do so would not produce well-formed XML.
One potential solution in the serialization process is to end the CDATA section before the character, output the character using a character reference or entity reference, and open a new CDATA section for any further characters in the text node. Note, however, that some code conversion libraries at the time of writing do not return an error or exception when a character is missing from the encoding, making the task of ensuring that data is not corrupted on serialization more difficult.


IDL Definition
interface CDATASection : Text {
};

Interface DocumentType

Each Document has a doctype attribute whose value is either null or a DocumentType object. The DocumentType interface in the DOM Core provides an interface to the list of entities that are defined for the document, and little else because the effect of namespaces and the various XML schema efforts on DTD representation are not clearly understood as of this writing.

The DOM Level 2 doesn't support editing DocumentType nodes.


IDL Definition
interface DocumentType : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        name;
  readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     entities;
  readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     notations;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
  // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
  readonly attribute DOMString        internalSubset;
};

Attributes
entities of type NamedNodeMap, readonly
A NamedNodeMap containing the general entities, both external and internal, declared in the DTD. Parameter entities are not contained. Duplicates are discarded. For example in:
<!DOCTYPE ex SYSTEM "ex.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY foo "foo">
  <!ENTITY bar "bar">
  <!ENTITY bar "bar2">
  <!ENTITY % baz "baz">
]>
<ex/>
the interface provides access to foo and the first declaration of bar but not the second declaration of bar or baz. Every node in this map also implements the Entity interface.
The DOM Level 2 does not support editing entities, therefore entities cannot be altered in any way.
internalSubset of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
The internal subset as a string.

Note: The actual content returned depends on how much information is available to the implementation. This may vary depending on various parameters, including the XML processor used to build the document.

name of type DOMString, readonly
The name of DTD; i.e., the name immediately following the DOCTYPE keyword.
notations of type NamedNodeMap, readonly
A NamedNodeMap containing the notations declared in the DTD. Duplicates are discarded. Every node in this map also implements the Notation interface.
The DOM Level 2 does not support editing notations, therefore notations cannot be altered in any way.
publicId of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
The public identifier of the external subset.
systemId of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
The system identifier of the external subset.
Interface Notation

This interface represents a notation declared in the DTD. A notation either declares, by name, the format of an unparsed entity (see section 4.7 of the XML 1.0 specification [XML]), or is used for formal declaration of processing instruction targets (see section 2.6 of the XML 1.0 specification [XML]). The nodeName attribute inherited from Node is set to the declared name of the notation.

The DOM Level 1 does not support editing Notation nodes; they are therefore readonly.

A Notation node does not have any parent.


IDL Definition
interface Notation : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
  readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
};

Attributes
publicId of type DOMString, readonly
The public identifier of this notation. If the public identifier was not specified, this is null.
systemId of type DOMString, readonly
The system identifier of this notation. If the system identifier was not specified, this is null.
Interface Entity

This interface represents an entity, either parsed or unparsed, in an XML document. Note that this models the entity itself not the entity declaration. Entity declaration modeling has been left for a later Level of the DOM specification.

The nodeName attribute that is inherited from Node contains the name of the entity.

An XML processor may choose to completely expand entities before the structure model is passed to the DOM; in this case there will be no EntityReference nodes in the document tree.

XML does not mandate that a non-validating XML processor read and process entity declarations made in the external subset or declared in external parameter entities. This means that parsed entities declared in the external subset need not be expanded by some classes of applications, and that the replacement value of the entity may not be available. When the replacement value is available, the corresponding Entity node's child list represents the structure of that replacement text. Otherwise, the child list is empty.

The DOM Level 2 does not support editing Entity nodes; if a user wants to make changes to the contents of an Entity, every related EntityReference node has to be replaced in the structure model by a clone of the Entity's contents, and then the desired changes must be made to each of those clones instead. Entity nodes and all their descendants are readonly.

An Entity node does not have any parent.

Note: If the entity contains an unbound namespace prefix, the namespaceURI of the corresponding node in the Entity node subtree is null. The same is true for EntityReference nodes that refer to this entity, when they are created using the createEntityReference method of the Document interface. The DOM Level 2 does not support any mechanism to resolve namespace prefixes.


IDL Definition
interface Entity : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
  readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
  readonly attribute DOMString        notationName;
};

Attributes
notationName of type DOMString, readonly
For unparsed entities, the name of the notation for the entity. For parsed entities, this is null.
publicId of type DOMString, readonly
The public identifier associated with the entity, if specified. If the public identifier was not specified, this is null.
systemId of type DOMString, readonly
The system identifier associated with the entity, if specified. If the system identifier was not specified, this is null.
Interface EntityReference

EntityReference objects may be inserted into the structure model when an entity reference is in the source document, or when the user wishes to insert an entity reference. Note that character references and references to predefined entities are considered to be expanded by the HTML or XML processor so that characters are represented by their Unicode equivalent rather than by an entity reference. Moreover, the XML processor may completely expand references to entities while building the structure model, instead of providing EntityReference objects. If it does provide such objects, then for a given EntityReference node, it may be that there is no Entity node representing the referenced entity. If such an Entity exists, then the subtree of the EntityReference node is in general a copy of the Entity node subtree. However, this may not be true when an entity contains an unbound namespace prefix. In such a case, because the namespace prefix resolution depends on where the entity reference is, the descendants of the EntityReference node may be bound to different namespace URIs.

As for Entity nodes, EntityReference nodes and all their descendants are readonly.


IDL Definition
interface EntityReference : Node {
};

Interface ProcessingInstruction

The ProcessingInstruction interface represents a "processing instruction", used in XML as a way to keep processor-specific information in the text of the document.


IDL Definition
interface ProcessingInstruction : Node {
  readonly attribute DOMString        target;
           attribute DOMString        data;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

};

Attributes
data of type DOMString
The content of this processing instruction. This is from the first non white space character after the target to the character immediately preceding the ?>.
Exceptions on setting

DOMException

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.

target of type DOMString, readonly
The target of this processing instruction. XML defines this as being the first token following the markup that begins the processing instruction.

13 November, 2000

Appendix A: Changes

Editors
Arnaud Le Hors, IBM
Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C

A.1: Changes between DOM Level 1 Core and DOM Level 2 Core

OMG IDL
The DOM Level 2 specifications are now using Corba 2.3.1 instead of Corba 2.2.
Type DOMString
The definition of DOMString in IDL is now a valuetype.

A.1.1: Changes to DOM Level 1 Core interfaces and exceptions

Interface Attr
The Attr interface has one new attribute: ownerElement.
Interface Document
The Document interface has five new methods: importNode, createElementNS, createAttributeNS, getElementsByTagNameNS and getElementById.
Interface NamedNodeMap
The NamedNodeMap interface has three new methods: getNamedItemNS, setNamedItemNS, removeNamedItemNS.
Interface Node
The Node interface has two new methods: isSupported and hasAttributes.
normalize, previously in the Element interface, has been moved in the Node interface.
The Node interface has three new attributes: namespaceURI, prefix and localName.
The ownerDocument attribute was specified to be null when the node is a Document. It now is also null when the node is a DocumentType which is not used with any Document yet.
Interface DocumentType
The DocumentType interface has three attributes: publicId, systemId and internalSubset.
Interface DOMImplementation
The DOMImplementation interface has two new methods: createDocumentType and createDocument.
Interface Element
The Element interface has eight new methods: getAttributeNS, setAttributeNS, removeAttributeNS, getAttributeNodeNS, setAttributeNodeNS, getElementsByTagNameNS, hasAttribute and hasAttributeNS.
The method normalize is now inherited from the Node interface where it was moved.
Exception DOMException
The DOMException has five new exception codes: INVALID_STATE_ERR, SYNTAX_ERR, INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR, NAMESPACE_ERR and INVALID_ACCESS_ERR.

A.1.2: New features

A.1.2.1: New types

DOMTimeStamp
The DOMTimeStamp type was added to the Core module.

13 November, 2000

Appendix B: Accessing code point boundaries

Mark Davis, IBM
Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc.

Table of contents

B.1: Introduction

This appendix is an informative, not a normative, part of the Level 2 DOM specification.

Characters are represented in Unicode by numbers called code points (also called scalar values). These numbers can range from 0 up to 1,114,111 = 10FFFF16 (although some of these values are illegal). Each code point can be directly encoded with a 32-bit code unit. This encoding is termed UCS-4 (or UTF-32). The DOM specification, however, uses UTF-16, in which the most frequent characters (which have values less than FFFF16) are represented by a single 16-bit code unit, while characters above FFFF16 use a special pair of code units called a surrogate pair. For more information, see [Unicode] or the Unicode Web site.

While indexing by code points as opposed to code units is not common in programs, some specifications such as XPath (and therefore XSLT and XPointer) use code point indices. For interfacing with such formats it is recommended that the programming language provide string processing methods for converting code point indices to code unit indices and back. Some languages do not provide these functions natively; for these it is recommended that the native String type that is bound to DOMString be extended to enable this conversion. An example of how such an API might look is supplied below.

Note: Since these methods are supplied as an illustrative example of the type of functionality that is required, the names of the methods, exceptions, and interface may differ from those given here.

B.2: Methods

Interface StringExtend

Extensions to a language's native String class or interface


IDL Definition
interface StringExtend {
  int                findOffset16(in int offset32)
                                        raises(StringIndexOutOfBoundsException);
  int                findOffset32(in int offset16)
                                        raises(StringIndexOutOfBoundsException);
};

Methods
findOffset16
Returns the UTF-16 offset that corresponds to a UTF-32 offset. Used for random access.

Note: You can always round-trip from a UTF-32 offset to a UTF-16 offset and back. You can round-trip from a UTF-16 offset to a UTF-32 offset and back if and only if the offset16 is not in the middle of a surrogate pair. Unmatched surrogates count as a single UTF-16 value.

Parameters
offset32 of type int
UTF-32 offset.
Return Value

int

UTF-16 offset

Exceptions

StringIndexOutOfBoundsException

if offset32 is out of bounds.

findOffset32
Returns the UTF-32 offset corresponding to a UTF-16 offset. Used for random access. To find the UTF-32 length of a string, use:
len32 = findOffset32(source, source.length());

Note: If the UTF-16 offset is into the middle of a surrogate pair, then the UTF-32 offset of the end of the pair is returned; that is, the index of the char after the end of the pair. You can always round-trip from a UTF-32 offset to a UTF-16 offset and back. You can round-trip from a UTF-16 offset to a UTF-32 offset and back if and only if the offset16 is not in the middle of a surrogate pair. Unmatched surrogates count as a single UTF-16 value.

Parameters
offset16 of type int
UTF-16 offset
Return Value

int

UTF-32 offset

Exceptions

StringIndexOutOfBoundsException

if offset16 is out of bounds.

13 November, 2000

Appendix C: IDL Definitions

This appendix contains the complete OMG IDL [OMGIDL] for the Level 2 Document Object Model Core definitions.

The IDL files are also available as: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113/idl.zip

dom.idl:

// File: dom.idl

#ifndef _DOM_IDL_
#define _DOM_IDL_

#pragma prefix "w3c.org"
module dom
{

  valuetype DOMString sequence<unsigned short>;

  typedef   unsigned long long DOMTimeStamp;

  interface DocumentType;
  interface Document;
  interface NodeList;
  interface NamedNodeMap;
  interface Element;

  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;


  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);
  };

  interface Node {

    // NodeType
    const unsigned short      ELEMENT_NODE                   = 1;
    const unsigned short      ATTRIBUTE_NODE                 = 2;
    const unsigned short      TEXT_NODE                      = 3;
    const unsigned short      CDATA_SECTION_NODE             = 4;
    const unsigned short      ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE          = 5;
    const unsigned short      ENTITY_NODE                    = 6;
    const unsigned short      PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE    = 7;
    const unsigned short      COMMENT_NODE                   = 8;
    const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_NODE                  = 9;
    const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE             = 10;
    const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE         = 11;
    const unsigned short      NOTATION_NODE                  = 12;

    readonly attribute DOMString        nodeName;
             attribute DOMString        nodeValue;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting
                                        // raises(DOMException) on retrieval

    readonly attribute unsigned short   nodeType;
    readonly attribute Node             parentNode;
    readonly attribute NodeList         childNodes;
    readonly attribute Node             firstChild;
    readonly attribute Node             lastChild;
    readonly attribute Node             previousSibling;
    readonly attribute Node             nextSibling;
    readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     attributes;
    // Modified in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute Document         ownerDocument;
    Node               insertBefore(in Node newChild, 
                                    in Node refChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Node               replaceChild(in Node newChild, 
                                    in Node oldChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Node               removeChild(in Node oldChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Node               appendChild(in Node newChild)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    boolean            hasChildNodes();
    Node               cloneNode(in boolean deep);
    // Modified in DOM Level 2:
    void               normalize();
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    boolean            isSupported(in DOMString feature, 
                                   in DOMString version);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute DOMString        namespaceURI;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
             attribute DOMString        prefix;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute DOMString        localName;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    boolean            hasAttributes();
  };

  interface NodeList {
    Node               item(in unsigned long index);
    readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
  };

  interface NamedNodeMap {
    Node               getNamedItem(in DOMString name);
    Node               setNamedItem(in Node arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Node               removeNamedItem(in DOMString name)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Node               item(in unsigned long index);
    readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    Node               getNamedItemNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                      in DOMString localName);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    Node               setNamedItemNS(in Node arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    Node               removeNamedItemNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                         in DOMString localName)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  };

  interface CharacterData : Node {
             attribute DOMString        data;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting
                                        // raises(DOMException) on retrieval

    readonly attribute unsigned long    length;
    DOMString          substringData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                     in unsigned long count)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    void               appendData(in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    void               insertData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                  in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    void               deleteData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                  in unsigned long count)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    void               replaceData(in unsigned long offset, 
                                   in unsigned long count, 
                                   in DOMString arg)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  };

  interface Attr : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        name;
    readonly attribute boolean          specified;
             attribute DOMString        value;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute Element          ownerElement;
  };

  interface Element : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        tagName;
    DOMString          getAttribute(in DOMString name);
    void               setAttribute(in DOMString name, 
                                    in DOMString value)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    void               removeAttribute(in DOMString name)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Attr               getAttributeNode(in DOMString name);
    Attr               setAttributeNode(in Attr newAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    Attr               removeAttributeNode(in Attr oldAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    NodeList           getElementsByTagName(in DOMString name);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    DOMString          getAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                      in DOMString localName);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    void               setAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                      in DOMString qualifiedName, 
                                      in DOMString value)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    void               removeAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                         in DOMString localName)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    Attr               getAttributeNodeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                          in DOMString localName);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    Attr               setAttributeNodeNS(in Attr newAttr)
                                        raises(DOMException);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    NodeList           getElementsByTagNameNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                              in DOMString localName);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    boolean            hasAttribute(in DOMString name);
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    boolean            hasAttributeNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, 
                                      in DOMString localName);
  };

  interface Text : CharacterData {
    Text               splitText(in unsigned long offset)
                                        raises(DOMException);
  };

  interface Comment : CharacterData {
  };

  interface CDATASection : Text {
  };

  interface DocumentType : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        name;
    readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     entities;
    readonly attribute NamedNodeMap     notations;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
    // Introduced in DOM Level 2:
    readonly attribute DOMString        internalSubset;
  };

  interface Notation : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
    readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
  };

  interface Entity : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        publicId;
    readonly attribute DOMString        systemId;
    readonly attribute DOMString        notationName;
  };

  interface EntityReference : Node {
  };

  interface ProcessingInstruction : Node {
    readonly attribute DOMString        target;
             attribute DOMString        data;
                                        // raises(DOMException) on setting

  };

  interface DocumentFragment : Node {
  };

  interface Document : Node {
    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);
  };
};

#endif // _DOM_IDL_

13 November, 2000

Appendix D: Java Language Binding

This appendix contains the complete Java Language [Java] binding for the Level 2 Document Object Model Core.

The Java files are also available as http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113/java-binding.zip

org/w3c/dom/DOMException.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public class DOMException extends RuntimeException {
    public DOMException(short code, String message) {
       super(message);
       this.code = code;
    }
    public short   code;
    // ExceptionCode
    public static final short INDEX_SIZE_ERR            = 1;
    public static final short DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR        = 2;
    public static final short HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR     = 3;
    public static final short WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR        = 4;
    public static final short INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR     = 5;
    public static final short NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR       = 6;
    public static final short NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR = 7;
    public static final short NOT_FOUND_ERR             = 8;
    public static final short NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR         = 9;
    public static final short INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR       = 10;
    public static final short INVALID_STATE_ERR         = 11;
    public static final short SYNTAX_ERR                = 12;
    public static final short INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR  = 13;
    public static final short NAMESPACE_ERR             = 14;
    public static final short INVALID_ACCESS_ERR        = 15;

}

org/w3c/dom/DOMImplementation.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface DOMImplementation {
    public boolean hasFeature(String feature, 
                              String version);

    public DocumentType createDocumentType(String qualifiedName, 
                                           String publicId, 
                                           String systemId)
                                           throws DOMException;

    public Document createDocument(String namespaceURI, 
                                   String qualifiedName, 
                                   DocumentType doctype)
                                   throws DOMException;

}

org/w3c/dom/DocumentFragment.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface DocumentFragment extends Node {
}

org/w3c/dom/Document.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Document extends Node {
    public DocumentType getDoctype();

    public DOMImplementation getImplementation();

    public Element getDocumentElement();

    public Element createElement(String tagName)
                                 throws DOMException;

    public DocumentFragment createDocumentFragment();

    public Text createTextNode(String data);

    public Comment createComment(String data);

    public CDATASection createCDATASection(String data)
                                           throws DOMException;

    public ProcessingInstruction createProcessingInstruction(String target, 
                                                             String data)
                                                             throws DOMException;

    public Attr createAttribute(String name)
                                throws DOMException;

    public EntityReference createEntityReference(String name)
                                                 throws DOMException;

    public NodeList getElementsByTagName(String tagname);

    public Node importNode(Node importedNode, 
                           boolean deep)
                           throws DOMException;

    public Element createElementNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                   String qualifiedName)
                                   throws DOMException;

    public Attr createAttributeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                  String qualifiedName)
                                  throws DOMException;

    public NodeList getElementsByTagNameNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                           String localName);

    public Element getElementById(String elementId);

}

org/w3c/dom/Node.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Node {
    // NodeType
    public static final short ELEMENT_NODE              = 1;
    public static final short ATTRIBUTE_NODE            = 2;
    public static final short TEXT_NODE                 = 3;
    public static final short CDATA_SECTION_NODE        = 4;
    public static final short ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE     = 5;
    public static final short ENTITY_NODE               = 6;
    public static final short PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE = 7;
    public static final short COMMENT_NODE              = 8;
    public static final short DOCUMENT_NODE             = 9;
    public static final short DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE        = 10;
    public static final short DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE    = 11;
    public static final short NOTATION_NODE             = 12;

    public String getNodeName();

    public String getNodeValue()
                                  throws DOMException;
    public void setNodeValue(String nodeValue)
                                  throws DOMException;

    public short getNodeType();

    public Node getParentNode();

    public NodeList getChildNodes();

    public Node getFirstChild();

    public Node getLastChild();

    public Node getPreviousSibling();

    public Node getNextSibling();

    public NamedNodeMap getAttributes();

    public Document getOwnerDocument();

    public Node insertBefore(Node newChild, 
                             Node refChild)
                             throws DOMException;

    public Node replaceChild(Node newChild, 
                             Node oldChild)
                             throws DOMException;

    public Node removeChild(Node oldChild)
                            throws DOMException;

    public Node appendChild(Node newChild)
                            throws DOMException;

    public boolean hasChildNodes();

    public Node cloneNode(boolean deep);

    public void normalize();

    public boolean isSupported(String feature, 
                               String version);

    public String getNamespaceURI();

    public String getPrefix();
    public void setPrefix(String prefix)
                               throws DOMException;

    public String getLocalName();

    public boolean hasAttributes();

}

org/w3c/dom/NodeList.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface NodeList {
    public Node item(int index);

    public int getLength();

}

org/w3c/dom/NamedNodeMap.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface NamedNodeMap {
    public Node getNamedItem(String name);

    public Node setNamedItem(Node arg)
                             throws DOMException;

    public Node removeNamedItem(String name)
                                throws DOMException;

    public Node item(int index);

    public int getLength();

    public Node getNamedItemNS(String namespaceURI, 
                               String localName);

    public Node setNamedItemNS(Node arg)
                               throws DOMException;

    public Node removeNamedItemNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                  String localName)
                                  throws DOMException;

}

org/w3c/dom/CharacterData.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface CharacterData extends Node {
    public String getData()
                                  throws DOMException;
    public void setData(String data)
                                  throws DOMException;

    public int getLength();

    public String substringData(int offset, 
                                int count)
                                throws DOMException;

    public void appendData(String arg)
                           throws DOMException;

    public void insertData(int offset, 
                           String arg)
                           throws DOMException;

    public void deleteData(int offset, 
                           int count)
                           throws DOMException;

    public void replaceData(int offset, 
                            int count, 
                            String arg)
                            throws DOMException;

}

org/w3c/dom/Attr.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Attr extends Node {
    public String getName();

    public boolean getSpecified();

    public String getValue();
    public void setValue(String value)
                            throws DOMException;

    public Element getOwnerElement();

}

org/w3c/dom/Element.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Element extends Node {
    public String getTagName();

    public String getAttribute(String name);

    public void setAttribute(String name, 
                             String value)
                             throws DOMException;

    public void removeAttribute(String name)
                                throws DOMException;

    public Attr getAttributeNode(String name);

    public Attr setAttributeNode(Attr newAttr)
                                 throws DOMException;

    public Attr removeAttributeNode(Attr oldAttr)
                                    throws DOMException;

    public NodeList getElementsByTagName(String name);

    public String getAttributeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                 String localName);

    public void setAttributeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                               String qualifiedName, 
                               String value)
                               throws DOMException;

    public void removeAttributeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                  String localName)
                                  throws DOMException;

    public Attr getAttributeNodeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                   String localName);

    public Attr setAttributeNodeNS(Attr newAttr)
                                   throws DOMException;

    public NodeList getElementsByTagNameNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                           String localName);

    public boolean hasAttribute(String name);

    public boolean hasAttributeNS(String namespaceURI, 
                                  String localName);

}

org/w3c/dom/Text.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Text extends CharacterData {
    public Text splitText(int offset)
                          throws DOMException;

}

org/w3c/dom/Comment.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Comment extends CharacterData {
}

org/w3c/dom/CDATASection.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface CDATASection extends Text {
}

org/w3c/dom/DocumentType.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface DocumentType extends Node {
    public String getName();

    public NamedNodeMap getEntities();

    public NamedNodeMap getNotations();

    public String getPublicId();

    public String getSystemId();

    public String getInternalSubset();

}

org/w3c/dom/Notation.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Notation extends Node {
    public String getPublicId();

    public String getSystemId();

}

org/w3c/dom/Entity.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface Entity extends Node {
    public String getPublicId();

    public String getSystemId();

    public String getNotationName();

}

org/w3c/dom/EntityReference.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface EntityReference extends Node {
}

org/w3c/dom/ProcessingInstruction.java:

package org.w3c.dom;

public interface ProcessingInstruction extends Node {
    public String getTarget();

    public String getData();
    public void setData(String data)
                          throws DOMException;

}

13 November, 2000

Appendix E: ECMAScript Language Binding

This appendix contains the complete ECMAScript [ECMAScript] binding for the Level 2 Document Object Model Core definitions.

Note: Exceptions handling is only supported by ECMAScript implementation conformant with the Standard ECMA-262 3rd. Edition ([ECMAScript]).

Prototype Object DOMException
The DOMException class has the following constants:
DOMException.INDEX_SIZE_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 1.
DOMException.DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 2.
DOMException.HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 3.
DOMException.WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 4.
DOMException.INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 5.
DOMException.NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 6.
DOMException.NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 7.
DOMException.NOT_FOUND_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 8.
DOMException.NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 9.
DOMException.INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 10.
DOMException.INVALID_STATE_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 11.
DOMException.SYNTAX_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 12.
DOMException.INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 13.
DOMException.NAMESPACE_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 14.
DOMException.INVALID_ACCESS_ERR
This constant is of type Number and its value is 15.
Object DOMException
The DOMException object has the following properties:
code
This property is of type Number.
Object DOMImplementation
The DOMImplementation object has the following methods:
hasFeature(feature, version)
This method returns a Boolean.
The feature parameter is of type String.
The version parameter is of type String.
createDocumentType(qualifiedName, publicId, systemId)
This method returns a DocumentType object.
The qualifiedName parameter is of type String.
The publicId parameter is of type String.
The systemId parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, doctype)
This method returns a Document object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The qualifiedName parameter is of type String.
The doctype parameter is a DocumentType object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
Object DocumentFragment
DocumentFragment has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
Object Document
Document has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Document object has the following properties:
doctype
This read-only property is a DocumentType object.
implementation
This read-only property is a DOMImplementation object.
documentElement
This read-only property is a Element object.
The Document object has the following methods:
createElement(tagName)
This method returns a Element object.
The tagName parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createDocumentFragment()
This method returns a DocumentFragment object.
createTextNode(data)
This method returns a Text object.
The data parameter is of type String.
createComment(data)
This method returns a Comment object.
The data parameter is of type String.
createCDATASection(data)
This method returns a CDATASection object.
The data parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createProcessingInstruction(target, data)
This method returns a ProcessingInstruction object.
The target parameter is of type String.
The data parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createAttribute(name)
This method returns a Attr object.
The name parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createEntityReference(name)
This method returns a EntityReference object.
The name parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getElementsByTagName(tagname)
This method returns a NodeList object.
The tagname parameter is of type String.
importNode(importedNode, deep)
This method returns a Node object.
The importedNode parameter is a Node object.
The deep parameter is of type Boolean.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createElementNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
This method returns a Element object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The qualifiedName parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
createAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
This method returns a Attr object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The qualifiedName parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a NodeList object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
getElementById(elementId)
This method returns a Element object.
The elementId parameter is of type String.
Prototype Object Node
The Node class has the following constants:
Node.ELEMENT_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 1.
Node.ATTRIBUTE_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 2.
Node.TEXT_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 3.
Node.CDATA_SECTION_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 4.
Node.ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 5.
Node.ENTITY_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 6.
Node.PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 7.
Node.COMMENT_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 8.
Node.DOCUMENT_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 9.
Node.DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 10.
Node.DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 11.
Node.NOTATION_NODE
This constant is of type Number and its value is 12.
Object Node
The Node object has the following properties:
nodeName
This read-only property is of type String.
nodeValue
This property is of type String, can raise a DOMException object on setting and can raise a DOMException object on retrieval.
nodeType
This read-only property is of type Number.
parentNode
This read-only property is a Node object.
childNodes
This read-only property is a NodeList object.
firstChild
This read-only property is a Node object.
lastChild
This read-only property is a Node object.
previousSibling
This read-only property is a Node object.
nextSibling
This read-only property is a Node object.
attributes
This read-only property is a NamedNodeMap object.
ownerDocument
This read-only property is a Document object.
namespaceURI
This read-only property is of type String.
prefix
This property is of type String and can raise a DOMException object on setting.
localName
This read-only property is of type String.
The Node object has the following methods:
insertBefore(newChild, refChild)
This method returns a Node object.
The newChild parameter is a Node object.
The refChild parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
replaceChild(newChild, oldChild)
This method returns a Node object.
The newChild parameter is a Node object.
The oldChild parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeChild(oldChild)
This method returns a Node object.
The oldChild parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
appendChild(newChild)
This method returns a Node object.
The newChild parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
hasChildNodes()
This method returns a Boolean.
cloneNode(deep)
This method returns a Node object.
The deep parameter is of type Boolean.
normalize()
This method has no return value.
isSupported(feature, version)
This method returns a Boolean.
The feature parameter is of type String.
The version parameter is of type String.
hasAttributes()
This method returns a Boolean.
Object NodeList
The NodeList object has the following properties:
length
This read-only property is of type Number.
The NodeList object has the following methods:
item(index)
This method returns a Node object.
The index parameter is of type Number.
Note: This object can also be dereferenced using square bracket notation (e.g. obj[1]). Dereferencing with an integer index is equivalent to invoking the item method with that index.
Object NamedNodeMap
The NamedNodeMap object has the following properties:
length
This read-only property is of type Number.
The NamedNodeMap object has the following methods:
getNamedItem(name)
This method returns a Node object.
The name parameter is of type String.
setNamedItem(arg)
This method returns a Node object.
The arg parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeNamedItem(name)
This method returns a Node object.
The name parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
item(index)
This method returns a Node object.
The index parameter is of type Number.
Note: This object can also be dereferenced using square bracket notation (e.g. obj[1]). Dereferencing with an integer index is equivalent to invoking the item method with that index.
getNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a Node object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
setNamedItemNS(arg)
This method returns a Node object.
The arg parameter is a Node object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a Node object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
Object CharacterData
CharacterData has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The CharacterData object has the following properties:
data
This property is of type String, can raise a DOMException object on setting and can raise a DOMException object on retrieval.
length
This read-only property is of type Number.
The CharacterData object has the following methods:
substringData(offset, count)
This method returns a String.
The offset parameter is of type Number.
The count parameter is of type Number.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
appendData(arg)
This method has no return value.
The arg parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
insertData(offset, arg)
This method has no return value.
The offset parameter is of type Number.
The arg parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
deleteData(offset, count)
This method has no return value.
The offset parameter is of type Number.
The count parameter is of type Number.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
replaceData(offset, count, arg)
This method has no return value.
The offset parameter is of type Number.
The count parameter is of type Number.
The arg parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
Object Attr
Attr has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Attr object has the following properties:
name
This read-only property is of type String.
specified
This read-only property is of type Boolean.
value
This property is of type String and can raise a DOMException object on setting.
ownerElement
This read-only property is a Element object.
Object Element
Element has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Element object has the following properties:
tagName
This read-only property is of type String.
The Element object has the following methods:
getAttribute(name)
This method returns a String.
The name parameter is of type String.
setAttribute(name, value)
This method has no return value.
The name parameter is of type String.
The value parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeAttribute(name)
This method has no return value.
The name parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getAttributeNode(name)
This method returns a Attr object.
The name parameter is of type String.
setAttributeNode(newAttr)
This method returns a Attr object.
The newAttr parameter is a Attr object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeAttributeNode(oldAttr)
This method returns a Attr object.
The oldAttr parameter is a Attr object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getElementsByTagName(name)
This method returns a NodeList object.
The name parameter is of type String.
getAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a String.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
setAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, value)
This method has no return value.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The qualifiedName parameter is of type String.
The value parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
removeAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method has no return value.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getAttributeNodeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a Attr object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
setAttributeNodeNS(newAttr)
This method returns a Attr object.
The newAttr parameter is a Attr object.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a NodeList object.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
hasAttribute(name)
This method returns a Boolean.
The name parameter is of type String.
hasAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
This method returns a Boolean.
The namespaceURI parameter is of type String.
The localName parameter is of type String.
Object Text
Text has the all the properties and methods of the CharacterData object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Text object has the following methods:
splitText(offset)
This method returns a Text object.
The offset parameter is of type Number.
This method can raise a DOMException object.
Object Comment
Comment has the all the properties and methods of the CharacterData object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
Object CDATASection
CDATASection has the all the properties and methods of the Text object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
Object DocumentType
DocumentType has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The DocumentType object has the following properties:
name
This read-only property is of type String.
entities
This read-only property is a NamedNodeMap object.
notations
This read-only property is a NamedNodeMap object.
publicId
This read-only property is of type String.
systemId
This read-only property is of type String.
internalSubset
This read-only property is of type String.
Object Notation
Notation has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Notation object has the following properties:
publicId
This read-only property is of type String.
systemId
This read-only property is of type String.
Object Entity
Entity has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The Entity object has the following properties:
publicId
This read-only property is of type String.
systemId
This read-only property is of type String.
notationName
This read-only property is of type String.
Object EntityReference
EntityReference has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
Object ProcessingInstruction
ProcessingInstruction has the all the properties and methods of the Node object as well as the properties and methods defined below.
The ProcessingInstruction object has the following properties:
target
This read-only property is of type String.
data
This property is of type String and can raise a DOMException object on setting.

13 November, 2000

Appendix F: Acknowledgements

Many people contributed to this specification, including members of the DOM Working Group and the DOM Interest Group. We especially thank the following:

Lauren Wood (SoftQuad Software Inc., chair), Andrew Watson (Object Management Group), Andy Heninger (IBM), Arnaud Le Hors (W3C and IBM), Ben Chang (Oracle), Bill Smith (Sun), Bill Shea (Merrill Lynch), Bob Sutor (IBM), Chris Lovett (Microsoft), Chris Wilson (Microsoft), David Brownell (Sun), David Singer (IBM), Don Park (invited), Eric Vasilik (Microsoft), Gavin Nicol (INSO), Ian Jacobs (W3C), James Clark (invited), James Davidson (Sun), Jared Sorensen (Novell), Joe Kesselman (IBM), Joe Lapp (webMethods), Joe Marini (Macromedia), Johnny Stenback (Netscape), Jonathan Marsh (Microsoft), Jonathan Robie (Texcel Research and Software AG), Kim Adamson-Sharpe (SoftQuad Software Inc.), Laurence Cable (Sun), Mark Davis (IBM), Mark Scardina (Oracle), Martin Dürst (W3C), Mick Goulish (Software AG), Mike Champion (Arbortext and Software AG), Miles Sabin (Cromwell Media), Patti Lutsky (Arbortext), Paul Grosso (Arbortext), Peter Sharpe (SoftQuad Software Inc.), Phil Karlton (Netscape), Philippe Le Hégaret (W3C, W3C team contact), Ramesh Lekshmynarayanan (Merrill Lynch), Ray Whitmer (iMall, Excite@Home and Netscape), Rich Rollman (Microsoft), Rick Gessner (Netscape), Scott Isaacs (Microsoft), Sharon Adler (INSO), Steve Byrne (JavaSoft), Tim Bray (invited), Tom Pixley (Netscape), Vidur Apparao (Netscape), Vinod Anupam (Lucent).

Thanks to all those who have helped to improve this specification by sending suggestions and corrections.

F.1: Production Systems

This specification was written in XML. The HTML, OMG IDL, Java and ECMA Script bindings were all produced automatically.

Thanks to Joe English, author of cost, which was used as the basis for producing DOM Level 1. Thanks also to Gavin Nicol, who wrote the scripts which run on top of cost. Arnaud Le Hors and Philippe Le Hégaret maintained the scripts.

For DOM Level 2, we used Xerces as the basis DOM implementation and wish to thank the authors. Philippe Le Hégaret and Arnaud Le Hors wrote the Java programs which are the DOM application.

Thanks also to Jan Kärrman, author of html2ps, which we use in creating the PostScript version of the specification.

13 November, 2000

Glossary

Editors
Arnaud Le Hors, IBM
Lauren Wood, SoftQuad Software Inc.
Robert S. Sutor, IBM (for DOM Level 1)

Several of the following term definitions have been borrowed or modified from similar definitions in other W3C or standards documents. See the links within the definitions for more information.

16-bit unit
The base unit of a DOMString. This indicates that indexing on a DOMString occurs in units of 16 bits. This must not be misunderstood to mean that a DOMString can store arbitrary 16-bit units. A DOMString is a character string encoded in UTF-16; this means that the restrictions of UTF-16 as well as the other relevant restrictions on character strings must be maintained. A single character, for example in the form of a numeric character reference, may correspond to one or two 16-bit units.
For more information, see [Unicode] and [ISO/IEC 10646].
ancestor
An ancestor node of any node A is any node above A in a tree model of a document, where "above" means "toward the root."
API
An API is an application programming interface, a set of functions or methods used to access some functionality.
child
A child is an immediate descendant node of a node.
client application
A [client] application is any software that uses the Document Object Model programming interfaces provided by the hosting implementation to accomplish useful work. Some examples of client applications are scripts within an HTML or XML document.
COM
COM is Microsoft's Component Object Model [COM], a technology for building applications from binary software components.
convenience
A convenience method is an operation on an object that could be accomplished by a program consisting of more basic operations on the object. Convenience methods are usually provided to make the API easier and simpler to use or to allow specific programs to create more optimized implementations for common operations. A similar definition holds for a convenience property.
data model
A data model is a collection of descriptions of data structures and their contained fields, together with the operations or functions that manipulate them.
descendant
A descendant node of any node A is any node below A in a tree model of a document, where "above" means "toward the root."
ECMAScript
The programming language defined by the ECMA-262 standard [ECMAScript]. As stated in the standard, the originating technology for ECMAScript was JavaScript [JavaScript]. Note that in the ECMAScript Language binding, the word "property" is used in the same sense as the IDL term "attribute."
element
Each document contains one or more elements, the boundaries of which are either delimited by start-tags and end-tags, or, for empty elements by an empty-element tag. Each element has a type, identified by name, and may have a set of attributes. Each attribute has a name and a value. See Logical Structures in XML [XML].
information item
An information item is an abstract representation of some component of an XML document. See the [Infoset] for details.
hosting implementation
A [hosting] implementation is a software module that provides an implementation of the DOM interfaces so that a client application can use them. Some examples of hosting implementations are browsers, editors and document repositories.
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of applications. [HTML4.0]
inheritance
In object-oriented programming, the ability to create new classes (or interfaces) that contain all the methods and properties of another class (or interface), plus additional methods and properties. If class (or interface) D inherits from class (or interface) B, then D is said to be derived from B. B is said to be a base class (or interface) for D. Some programming languages allow for multiple inheritance, that is, inheritance from more than one class or interface.
interface
An interface is a declaration of a set of methods with no information given about their implementation. In object systems that support interfaces and inheritance, interfaces can usually inherit from one another.
language binding
A programming language binding for an IDL specification is an implementation of the interfaces in the specification for the given language. For example, a Java language binding for the Document Object Model IDL specification would implement the concrete Java classes that provide the functionality exposed by the interfaces.
local name
A local name is the local part of a qualified name. This is called the local part in Namespaces in XML [Namespaces].
method
A method is an operation or function that is associated with an object and is allowed to manipulate the object's data.
model
A model is the actual data representation for the information at hand. Examples are the structural model and the style model representing the parse structure and the style information associated with a document. The model might be a tree, or a directed graph, or something else.
namespace prefix
A namespace prefix is a string that associates an element or attribute name with a namespace URI in XML. See namespace prefix in Namespaces in XML [Namespaces].
namespace URI
A namespace URI is a URI that identifies an XML namespace. Strictly speaking, this actually is a namespace URI reference. This is called the namespace name in Namespaces in XML [Namespaces].
object model
An object model is a collection of descriptions of classes or interfaces, together with their member data, member functions, and class-static operations.
parent
A parent is an immediate ancestor node of a node.
qualified name
A qualified name is the name of an element or attribute defined as the concatenation of a local name (as defined in this specification), optionally preceded by a namespace prefix and colon character. See Qualified Names in Namespaces in XML [Namespaces].
readonly node
A readonly node is a node that is immutable. This means its list of children, its content, and its attributes, when it is an element, cannot be changed in any way. However, a readonly node can possibly be moved, when it is not itself contained in a readonly node.
root node
The root node is the unique node that is not a child of any other node. All other nodes are children or other descendants of the root node.
sibling
Two nodes are siblings if and only if they have the same parent node.
string comparison
When string matching is required, it is to occur as though the comparison was between 2 sequences of code points from the Unicode 3.0 standard [Unicode].
token
An information item such as an XML Name which has been tokenized.
tokenized
The description given to various information items (for example, attribute values of various types, but not including the StringType CDATA) after having been processed by the XML processor. The process includes stripping leading and trailing white space, and replacing multiple space characters by one. See the definition of tokenized type.
well-formed document
A document is well-formed if it is tag valid and entities are limited to single elements (i.e., single sub-trees). See Well-Formed XML Documents in XML [XML].
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an extremely simple dialect of SGML. The goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML [XML] has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML.
XML name
See XML name in the XML specification [XML].
XML namespace
An XML namespace is a collection of names, identified by a URI reference [RFC2396], which are used in XML documents as element types and attribute names. [Namespaces]

13 November, 2000

References

For the latest version of any W3C specification please consult the list of W3C Technical Reports available at http://www.w3.org/TR.

H.1: Normative references

Charmod
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Character Model for the World Wide Web, November 1999. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-charmod-19991129
ECMAScript
ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) ECMAScript Language Specification. Available at http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-262.HTM
HTML4.0
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) HTML 4.0 Specification, April 1998. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424
ISO/IEC 10646
ISO (International Organization for Standardization). ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000 (E). Information technology - Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane. [Geneva]: International Organization for Standardization.
Java
Sun Microsystems Inc. The Java Language Specification, James Gosling, Bill Joy, and Guy Steele, September 1996. Available at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls
Namespaces
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Namespaces in XML, January 1999. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xml-names-19990114
OMGIDL
OMG (Object Management Group) IDL (Interface Definition Language) defined in The Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification, version 2.3.1, October 1999. Available from http://www.omg.org/
RFC2396
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) RFC 2396: Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax, eds. T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter. August 1998. Available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
Unicode
The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0., February 2000. Available at http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/versions/Unicode3.0.html.
XML
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0, February 1998. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210

H.2: Informative references

DOM Level 2 CSS
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 CSS. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Style/css
COM
Microsoft Corp. The Component Object Model. Available at http://www.microsoft.com/com
CORBA
OMG (Object Management Group) The Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification, version 2.3.1, October 1999. Available from http://www.omg.org/
DOM Level 1
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) DOM Level 1 Specification, October 1998. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1
DOM Level 2 HTML
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 HTML Specification. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-HTML
DOM Level 2 Events
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 Events Specification. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Events
Infoset
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) XML Information Set, December 1999. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset
JavaIDL
Sun Microsystems Inc. Java IDL. Available at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/guide/idl
JavaScript
Netscape Communications Corp. JavaScript Resources. Available at http://developer.netscape.com/tech/javascript/resources.html
JScript
Microsoft Corp. JScript Resources. Available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm
MIDL
Microsoft Corp. MIDL Language Reference. Available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/psdk/midl/mi-laref_1r1h.htm
DOM Level 2 Style Sheets
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 Style Sheets. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Style/stylesheets
DOM Level 2 Traversal
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 Traversal. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Traversal-Range/traversal
DOM Level 2 Range
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 Range. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Traversal-Range/ranges
DOM Level 2 Views
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Document Object Model Level 2 Views Specification. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Views
XPointer
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) XML Pointer Language (XPointer), June 2000. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr

13 November, 2000

Index

16-bit unit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
 
ancestor 1, 2, 3, 4 API 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 appendChild
appendData Attr ATTRIBUTE_NODE
attributes
 
CDATA_SECTION_NODE CDATASection CharacterData
Charmod 1, 2 child 1, 2, 3 childNodes
client application 1, 2 cloneNode COM 1, 2, 3, 4
Comment COMMENT_NODE convenience 1, 2, 3
CORBA 1, 2 createAttribute createAttributeNS
createCDATASection createComment createDocument
createDocumentFragment createDocumentType createElement
createElementNS createEntityReference createProcessingInstruction
createTextNode
 
data 1, 2 data model 1, 2 deleteData
descendant 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 doctype Document
DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE DOCUMENT_NODE DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
documentElement DocumentFragment DocumentType
DOM Level 1 1, 2 DOM Level 2 CSS 1, 2 DOM Level 2 Events 1, 2
DOM Level 2 HTML 1, 2, 3, 4 DOM Level 2 Range 1, 2 DOM Level 2 Style Sheets 1, 2
DOM Level 2 Traversal 1, 2 DOM Level 2 Views 1, 2 DOMException
DOMImplementation DOMString DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR
DOMTimeStamp
 
ECMAScript 1, 2, 3, 4 Element 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ELEMENT_NODE
entities Entity ENTITY_NODE
ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE EntityReference
 
firstChild
 
getAttribute getAttributeNode getAttributeNodeNS
getAttributeNS getElementById getElementsByTagName 1, 2
getElementsByTagNameNS 1, 2 getNamedItem getNamedItemNS
 
hasAttribute hasAttributeNS hasAttributes
hasChildNodes hasFeature HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
hosting implementation 1, 2 HTML 1, 2 HTML4.0 1, 2
 
implementation importNode INDEX_SIZE_ERR
information item 1, 2 Infoset 1, 2, 3, 4 inheritance 1, 2
insertBefore insertData interface 1, 2
internalSubset INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR INVALID_ACCESS_ERR
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR INVALID_STATE_ERR
ISO/IEC 10646 1, 2, 3 isSupported item 1, 2
 
Java 1, 2 JavaIDL 1, 2 JavaScript 1, 2, 3
JScript 1, 2
 
language binding 1, 2 lastChild length 1, 2, 3
live 1, 2, 3 local name 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 localName
 
method 1, 2 MIDL 1, 2 model 1, 2
 
name 1, 2 NamedNodeMap namespace prefix 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
namespace URI 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 NAMESPACE_ERR Namespaces 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
namespaceURI nextSibling NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR Node NodeList
nodeName nodeType nodeValue
normalize NOT_FOUND_ERR NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR
Notation NOTATION_NODE notationName
notations
 
object model 1, 2, 3 OMGIDL 1, 2, 3 ownerDocument
ownerElement
 
parent 1, 2 parentNode prefix
previousSibling PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE ProcessingInstruction
publicId 1, 2, 3
 
qualified name 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
 
readonly node 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 removeAttribute removeAttributeNode
removeAttributeNS removeChild removeNamedItem
removeNamedItemNS replaceChild replaceData
RFC2396 1, 2 root node 1, 2
 
setAttribute setAttributeNode setAttributeNodeNS
setAttributeNS setNamedItem setNamedItemNS
sibling 1, 2, 3 specified splitText
string comparison 1, 2, 3 substringData SYNTAX_ERR
systemId 1, 2, 3
 
tagName target Text
TEXT_NODE token 1, 2 tokenized 1, 2
 
Unicode 1, 2, 3, 4
 
value
 
well-formed document 1, 2 WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
 
XML 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 XML name 1, 2 XML namespace 1, 2
XPointer 1, 2