XML DOM OBJECT

XML DOM - The Document Object

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The Document object is the root-node of a document. All nodes in a node-tree are childnodes of the Document object.

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Examples

We will use the following XML document in the examples below: note.xml.

documentElement - Return the node name of the root element

createElement() - Create a new element

createTextNode() - Create a new text node

createCDATASection() - Create a new CDATA node

createComment() - Create a new comment node

getElementsByTagName() - Return the value of a specified node

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The Document object

The Document object represents the entire XML document.

The Document object is the root-node of a document. All nodes in a node-tree are childnodes of the Document object.

A node can be an element node, an attribute node, a text node, or any other of the node types explained in the "Node types" chapter.

IE: Internet Explorer, F: Firefox, N: Netscape, W3C: World Wide Web Consortium (Internet Standard)

Document Object Properties

Property	Description	IE	F	N	W3C
async	Specifies whether downloading of an XML file should be handled asynchronously or not. True means that the load() method returns the control to the caller before the download is complete. False means that the download must be completed before the caller gets the control back	5	-	-	No
attributes	Returns a NamedNodeMap that contains all attributes of a node	5	1	6	No
baseName	Returns the name of a node (without namespaces)	5	-	-	No
childNodes	Returns a node list that contains all children of a node	5	1	6	No
dataType	Returns the data type of a node	5	-	-	No
definition	Returns the definition of a node in the DTD/Schema	5	-	-	No
doctype	Returns the DTD or Schema for the document	6	1	6	Yes
documentElement	Returns the root element of the document	5	1	6	Yes
firstChild	Returns the first child node of a node	5	1	6	No
implementation	Returns the DOMImplementation object for this particular document	6	1	6	Yes
lastChild	Returns the last child node of a node	5	-	-	No
namespaceURI	Returns the URI of the namespace	5	1	6	No
nextSibling	Returns the node immediately following a node. Two nodes are siblings if they have the same parent node	5	1	6	No
nodeName	Returns the name of the node	5	1	6	No
nodeType	Returns the node type as a number	5	1	6	No
nodeTypedValue	Returns the value of a node expressed in its defined data type	5	-	-	No
nodeTypeString	Returns the node type as a string	5	-	-	No
nodeValue	Returns the value of the node	5	1	6	No
ownerDocument	Returns the Document object of a node (returns the root node of the document)	5	1	6	No
parentNode	Returns the parent node of a node	5	1	6	No
parsed	Returns true if the node and all of its descendants have been parsed. Otherwise it returns false	5	-	-	No
parseError	Returns a ParseError object containing information about the parse error	5	-	-	No
prefix	Returns the namespace prefix of a node	5	-	-	No
preserveWhiteSpace	Returns true if the default processing preserves white space. Otherwise it returns false	5	-	-	No
previousSibling	Returns the node immediately previous to the current node. Two nodes are siblings if they have the same parent node	5	1	6
readyState	Returns the current state of the XML document	5	-	-	No
text	Returns the text content of a node and all its children	5	-	-	No
url	Returns the URL for the last loaded XML document	5	-	-	No
validateOnParse	Indicates whether the document should be validated by the parser. Default is true. If false, only well-formed XML will be parsed	5	-	-	No
xml	Returns the XML of a node and all its children	5	-	-	No

Document Object Methods

Method	Description	IE	F	N	W3C
abort()	Aborts the XML download	5	-	-	No
appendChild("name")	Appends a new childnode to a node	5	-	-	No
cloneNode(boolean)	Creates an exact clone node of a node. If the boolean parameter is set to true, the cloned node clones all the child nodes of the original node as well	5	-	-	No
createAttribute("name")	Creates a new attribute node	6	1	6	Yes
createCDATASection("text")	Creates a new CDATA section node	5	-	-	Yes
createComment("text")	Creates a new comment node	6	-	-	Yes
createDocumentFragment()	Creates an empty documentFragment object	5	1	6	Yes
createElement("name")	Creates a new element node	5	1	6	Yes
createEntityReference("name")	Creates a new entityReference node	5	-	-	Yes
createNode(type,name,ns)	Creates a new node	5	-	-	No
createProcessingInstruction(target,text)	Creates a new processingInstruction node	5	-	-	Yes
createTextNode("text")	Creates a new text node	5	1	6	Yes
getElementById("id")		5	1	6	Yes
getElementByName("name")		5	1	6
getElementsByTagName("name")	Returns the specified node, and all its child nodes, as a node list	5	1	6	Yes
hasChildNodes()	Returns true if a node has child nodes. Otherwise it returns false	5	-	-	No
insertBefore(newnode,refnode)	Inserts a new node before an existing node	5	-	-	No
load("URL")	Loads the specified XML document	5	-	-	No
loadXML("text")	Loads an XML document using the specified string	5	-	-	No
nodeFromID(id)	Returns the node for the element whose ID attribute matches the one specified	5	-	-	No
removeChild("name")	Removes and returns the specified node	5	-	-	No
replaceChild(newnode,oldnode)	Replaces an oldnode with a newnode, and returns the oldnode	5	-	-	No
save(obj)	Saves an XML document to the specified location	5	-	-	No
selectNodes(pattern)	Creates a node list of all the matching descendant nodes returned by the specified pattern	5	-	-	No
selectSingleNode(pattern)	Returns a Node object for the first descendant node to match the specified pattern	5	-	-	No
transformNode(stylesheet)	Processes a node and its descendants using the specified XSL stylesheet, and returns the result	5	-	-	No
transformNodeToObject(stylesheet,object)	Processes a node and its descendants using the specified XSL stylesheet, and returns the result in the specified object	5	-	-	No

Events

Event	Description	IE	F	N	W3C
ondataavailable	Executes some code when the XML document data is available Syntax: document.ondataavailable="myFunction"	5	-	-	No
onreadystatechange	Executes some code when the readyState property changes Syntax: document.onreadystatechange="myFunction"	5	-	-	No
ontransformnode	Triggered before each node in the XML is transformed by each node in the style sheet Syntax: boolean = ontransformnode(nodecode,nodedata)	5	-	-	No