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