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.
The DOM presents documents as a hierarchy of Node objects that
also implement other, more specialized interfaces. Some types of
nodes may have child
nodes of various types, and others are leaf nodes that cannot have
anything below them in the document structure. For XML and HTML,
the node types, and which node types they may have as children, are
as follows:
Document -- Element (maximum of
one), ProcessingInstruction,
Comment, DocumentType
(maximum of one)DocumentFragment --
Element, ProcessingInstruction,
Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReferenceDocumentType
-- no childrenEntityReference -- Element, ProcessingInstruction,
Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReferenceElement -- Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction,
CDATASection, EntityReferenceAttr -- Text, EntityReferenceProcessingInstruction
-- no childrenComment --
no childrenText -- no
childrenCDATASection
-- no childrenEntity -- Element, ProcessingInstruction,
Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReferenceNotation -- no
childrenThe 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.
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.
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.
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.
DOMString typeTo ensure interoperability, the DOM specifies the following:
A DOMString is a
sequence of 16-bit
units.
valuetype DOMString sequence<unsigned short>;
DOMString using UTF-16
(defined in [Unicode] and Amendment 1 of [ISO/IEC
10646]).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.
DOMTimeStamp
typeTo ensure interoperability, the DOM specifies the following:
A DOMTimeStamp
represents a number of milliseconds.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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;
An integer indicating the type of error generated.
Note: Other numeric codes are reserved for W3C for possible future use.
DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERRHIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERRINDEX_SIZE_ERRINUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERRINVALID_ACCESS_ERR,
introduced in DOM Level 2.INVALID_CHARACTER_ERRINVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR,
introduced in DOM Level 2.INVALID_STATE_ERR,
introduced in DOM Level 2.NAMESPACE_ERR, introduced in
DOM Level 2.NOT_FOUND_ERRNOT_SUPPORTED_ERRNO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERRNO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERRSYNTAX_ERR, introduced in DOM Level 2.WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERRThe DOMImplementation interface provides a number
of methods for performing operations that are independent of any
particular instance of the document object model.
interface DOMImplementation {
boolean hasFeature(in DOMString feature,
in DOMString version);
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
DocumentType createDocumentType(in DOMString qualifiedName,
in DOMString publicId,
in DOMString systemId)
raises(DOMException);
// Introduced in DOM Level 2:
Document createDocument(in DOMString namespaceURI,
in DOMString qualifiedName,
in DocumentType doctype)
raises(DOMException);
};
createDocument
introduced in DOM Level 2Document object of the
specified type with its document element. HTML-only DOM
implementations do not need to implement this method.
namespaceURI of type DOMStringqualifiedName of type DOMStringdoctype of type DocumentTypenull.doctype is not null, its Node.ownerDocument
attribute is set to the document being created.|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if |
createDocumentType
introduced in DOM Level 2DocumentType 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.qualifiedName of type DOMStringpublicId of type DOMStringsystemId of type DOMString|
A new |
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the |
hasFeaturefeature of type DOMStringversion of type DOMStringtrue.|
|
|
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.
interface DocumentFragment : Node {
};
The Document interface represents the entire HTML
or XML document. Conceptually, it is the root of the document
tree, and provides the primary access to the document's data.
Since elements, text nodes, comments, processing instructions,
etc. cannot exist outside the context of a Document,
the Document interface also contains the factory
methods needed to create these objects. The Node objects
created have a ownerDocument attribute which
associates them with the Document within whose context
they were created.
interface Document : Node {
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);
};
doctype of type DocumentType,
readonlyDocumentType)
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,
readonlyimplementation of type DOMImplementation,
readonlyDOMImplementation
object that handles this document. A DOM application may use
objects from multiple implementations.createAttributeAttr of the given
name. Note that the Attr instance can
then be set on an Element using the
setAttributeNode method.createAttributeNS method.
name of type DOMString|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character. |
createAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI of type DOMStringqualifiedName of type DOMString|
A new
|
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the |
createCDATASectionCDATASection node
whose value is the specified string.
data of type DOMStringCDATASection
contents.|
The new |
|
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. |
createCommentcreateDocumentFragmentDocumentFragment
object.
|
A new |
createElementElement interface,
so attributes can be specified directly on the returned
object.Attr nodes
representing them are automatically created and attached to the
element.createElementNS method.
tagName of type DOMStringtagName parameter may be
provided in any case, but it must be mapped to the canonical
uppercase form by the DOM implementation.|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character. |
createElementNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI of type DOMStringqualifiedName of type DOMString|
A new
|
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character. NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the |
createEntityReferenceEntityReference
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.
name of type DOMString|
The new |
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. |
createProcessingInstructionProcessingInstruction
node given the specified name and data strings.
|
The new |
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified target contains an illegal character. NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document. |
createTextNodegetElementById introduced in DOM Level 2Element 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.
elementId of type DOMStringid value for an element.|
The matching element. |
getElementsByTagNamegetElementsByTagNameNS introduced
in DOM Level 2NodeList 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.
namespaceURI of type DOMStringlocalName of type DOMStringimportNode introduced in
DOM Level 2parentNode
is null). The source node is not altered or removed
from the original document; this method creates a new copy of the
source node.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.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.
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.deep parameter has no effect on Attr nodes; they
always carry their children with them when imported.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 nodes cannot be imported.DocumentType
nodes cannot be imported.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 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.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.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 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.publicId and systemId
attributes are copied.deep parameter has no effect on Notation nodes since
they never have any children.target and
data values from those of the source node.CharacterData copy
their data and length attributes from
those of the source node.importedNode of type Nodedeep of type
booleantrue, 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.|
The imported node that belongs to this
|
|
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the type of node being imported is not supported. |
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.
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();
};
An integer indicating which type of node this is.
Note: Numeric codes up to 200 are reserved to W3C for possible future use.
ATTRIBUTE_NODEAttr.CDATA_SECTION_NODECDATASection.COMMENT_NODEComment.DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODEDocumentFragment.DOCUMENT_NODEDocument.DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODEDocumentType.ELEMENT_NODEElement.ENTITY_NODEEntity.ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODEEntityReference.NOTATION_NODENotation.PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODEProcessingInstruction.TEXT_NODEText 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 of type NamedNodeMap,
readonlyNamedNodeMap
containing the attributes of this node (if it is an Element) or
null otherwise.childNodes of type NodeList,
readonlyNodeList
that contains all children of this node. If there are no children,
this is a NodeList containing
no nodes.firstChild of type Node, readonlynull.lastChild of type Node, readonlynull.localName of type DOMString, readonly,
introduced in DOM Level 2ELEMENT_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 2null if it is
unspecified.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, readonlynull.nodeName of type DOMString,
readonlynodeType of type unsigned
short, readonlynodeValue of type DOMStringnull, setting it has
no effect.|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly. |
|
DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters
than fit in a |
ownerDocument of type Document, readonly,
modified in DOM Level 2Document
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, readonlyAttr, 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 2null if it is
unspecified.nodeName attribute, which holds the qualified name,
as well as the tagName and name
attributes of the Element and Attr interfaces,
when applicable.namespaceURI and localName do not
change.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.|
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 |
previousSibling of type Node, readonlynull.appendChildnewChild to the end
of the list of children of this node. If the newChild
is already in the tree, it is first removed.
newChild of type NodeDocumentFragment
object, the entire contents of the document fragment are moved into
the child list of this node|
The node added. |
|
HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that
does not allow children of the type of the WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
cloneNodeparentNode is null.).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.EntityReference clone
are readonly.
In addition, clones of unspecified Attr nodes are
specified. And, cloning Document, DocumentType, Entity, and Notation nodes is
implementation dependent.
deep of type
booleantrue, recursively clone the subtree under the
specified node; if false, clone only the node itself
(and its attributes, if it is an Element).|
The duplicate node. |
hasAttributes introduced in DOM Level 2|
|
|
hasChildNodes|
|
|
insertBeforenewChild before
the existing child node refChild. If
refChild is null, insert
newChild at the end of the list of children.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.
|
The node being inserted. |
|
HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that
does not allow children of the type of the WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if 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 |
isSupported introduced
in DOM Level 2feature of type DOMStringhasFeature on DOMImplementation.version of type DOMStringtrue.|
|
Returns |
normalize modified in DOM Level 2Text 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.
removeChildoldChild from the list of children, and returns it.
oldChild of type Node|
The node removed. |
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if |
replaceChildoldChild
with newChild in the list of children, and returns the
oldChild node.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.
|
The node replaced. |
|
HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that
does not allow children of the type of the WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node or the parent of the new node is readonly. NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if |
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.
interface NodeList {
Node item(in unsigned long index);
readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};
length of type unsigned
long, readonlylength-1 inclusive.itemindexth item in the
collection. If index is greater than or equal to the
number of nodes in the list, this returns null.
index of type
unsigned long|
The node at the |
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.
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);
};
length of type unsigned
long, readonly0 to length-1 inclusive.getNamedItemgetNamedItemNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI of type DOMStringlocalName of type DOMStringitemindexth item in the
map. If index is greater than or equal to the number
of nodes in this map, this returns null.
index of type
unsigned long|
The node at the |
removeNamedItemname of type DOMStringnodeName of the node to remove.|
The node removed from this map if a node with such a name exists. |
|
NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if there is no node named
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly. |
removeNamedItemNS introduced
in DOM Level 2Node interface. If
so, an attribute immediately appears containing the default value
as well as the corresponding namespace URI, local name, and prefix
when applicable.namespaceURI of type DOMStringlocalName of type DOMString|
The node removed from this map if a node with such a local name and namespace URI exists. |