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, EntityReference DocumentType -- no childrenEntityReference -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference Element -- 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 devised by the DOM Working Group (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, some DOM names tend to be long and quite 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, we use 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
Working Group considers it 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.
typedef sequence<unsigned short> DOMString;
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.
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 may raise other exceptions under other circumstances.
For example, implementations may 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, readonly
implementation 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:
| 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, readonly
nodeType of type unsigned short, readonly
nodeValue 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. |
|
NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if there is no node with the specified
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly. |
setNamedItemnodeName attribute. If a node with
that name is already present in this map, it is replaced by the new
one.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.arg of type
NodenodeName
attribute.|
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly. INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if |
setNamedItemNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI 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.arg of type
NodenamespaceURI and
localName attributes.|
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this map is readonly. INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if |
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.
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);
};
data of type DOMStringCharacterData 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.
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly. |
|
DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more
characters than fit in a |
length of type unsigned long, readonlydata and the
substringData method below. This may have the value zero,
i.e., CharacterData nodes may be empty.
appendDatadata provides access to the concatenation of
data and the DOMString specified.
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
deleteDatadata and length
reflect the change.offset of type
unsigned longcount of type
unsigned longoffset and count exceeds
length then all 16-bit units from offset
to the end of the data are deleted.
|
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
insertData
|
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
replaceDataoffset of type
unsigned longcount of type
unsigned longoffset 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
DOMStringDOMString with which the range must
be replaced.
|
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
substringDataoffset of type
unsigned longcount of type
unsigned long|
The specified substring. If the sum of |
|
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified range of text does
not fit into a |
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 provide a representation in
which entity references are not expanded. These child nodes may be either
Text or EntityReference nodes. 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.
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;
};
name of type DOMString, readonly
ownerElement of type Element, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2Element node this attribute is attached to or
null if this attribute is not in use.
specified of type boolean, readonlytrue; 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).specified is true, and the value is the
assigned value.
specified is false,
and the value is the default value in the DTD.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 DOMStringgetAttribute on the
Element interface.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.
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly. |
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.
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);
};
tagName of type DOMString, readonly
<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.
getAttributegetAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI of type
DOMStringlocalName of type
DOMStringgetAttributeNodegetAttributeNodeNS method.name of type
DOMStringnodeName) of the attribute to
retrieve.getAttributeNodeNS introduced in DOM Level 2Attr node by local name and namespace
URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this
method.namespaceURI of type
DOMStringlocalName of type
DOMStringgetElementsByTagNameNodeList 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.name of type
DOMString|
A list of matching |
getElementsByTagNameNS introduced in DOM Level 2NodeList 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.namespaceURI of type
DOMStringlocalName of type
DOMStringhasAttribute introduced in DOM Level 2true when an attribute with a given name is
specified on this element or has a default value, false
otherwise.name of type
DOMString
|
|
hasAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2true 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.namespaceURI of type
DOMStringlocalName of type
DOMString
|
|
removeAttributeremoveAttributeNS method.name of type
DOMString
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
removeAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2namespaceURI of type
DOMStringlocalName of type
DOMString
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
removeAttributeNodeAttr 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.
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if |
setAttributeAttr node plus any Text and
EntityReference nodes, build the appropriate subtree, and
use setAttributeNode to assign it as the value of an
attribute.setAttributeNS method.
|
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character. NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
setAttributeNS introduced in DOM Level 2qualifiedName, 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.namespaceURI of type
DOMStringqualifiedName of type
DOMStringvalue of type
DOMString
|
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 |
setAttributeNodenodeName) is already present in the element, it is replaced
by the new one.setAttributeNodeNS method.
|
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if |
setAttributeNodeNS introduced in DOM Level 2|
If the |
|
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if |
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.
interface Text : CharacterData {
Text splitText(in unsigned long offset)
raises(DOMException);
};
splitTextoffset, 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.offset of type
unsigned long0.|
The new node, of the same type as this node. |
|
INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or
greater than the number of 16-bit units in NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly. |
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.
interface Comment : CharacterData {
};
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.
A DOM application can use the hasFeature method of the DOMImplementation interface to determine whether they are supported or not. The feature
string for all the interfaces listed in this section is "XML" and the version
is "2.0".
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.
interface CDATASection : Text {
};
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.
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;
};
entities of type NamedNodeMap, readonlyNamedNodeMap 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/>
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.entities cannot be altered in any way.
internalSubset of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2Note: 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, readonlyDOCTYPE keyword.
notations of type NamedNodeMap, readonlyNamedNodeMap containing the
notations declared in the DTD. Duplicates are discarded. Every node in
this map also implements the Notation interface.notations cannot be altered in any way.
publicId of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
systemId of type DOMString, readonly, introduced in DOM Level 2
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.
interface Notation : Node {
readonly attribute DOMString publicId;
readonly attribute DOMString systemId;
};
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.
interface Entity : Node {
readonly attribute DOMString publicId;
readonly attribute DOMString systemId;
readonly attribute DOMString notationName;
};
notationName of type DOMString, readonlynull.
publicId of type DOMString, readonlynull.
systemId of type DOMString, readonlynull.
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.
interface EntityReference : Node {
};
The ProcessingInstruction interface
represents a "processing instruction", used in XML
as a way to keep processor-specific information in the text of the
document.
interface ProcessingInstruction : Node {
readonly attribute DOMString target;
attribute DOMString data;
// raises(DOMException) on setting
};
data of type DOMString?>.
|
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly. |
target of type DOMString, readonly