DOM Element

XML DOM - The Element Object The Element object The Element object represents an element in an XML document. Elements may contain attributes, other elements, or text. If an element contains text, the text is represented in a text-node. IMPORTANT! Text is always stored in text nodes. A common error in DOM processing is to navigate to an element node and expect it to contain the text. However, even the simplest element node has a text node under it. For example, in <year>2005</year>, there is an element node (year), and a text node under it, which contains the text (2005). Because the Element object is also a Node, it inherits the Node object's properties and methods. Element Object Properties Property Description attributes Returns a NamedNodeMap of attributes for the element baseURI Returns the absolute base URI of the element childNodes Returns a NodeList of child nodes for the element firstChild Returns the first child of the element lastChild Returns the last child of the element localName Returns the local part of the name of the element namespaceURI Returns the namespace URI of the element nextSibling Returns the node immediately following the element nodeName Returns the name of the node, depending on its type nodeType Returns the type of the node ownerDocument Returns the root element (document object) for an element parentNode Returns the parent node of the element prefix Sets or returns the namespace prefix of the element previousSibling Returns the node immediately before the element schemaTypeInfo Returns the type information associated with the element tagName Returns the name of the element textContent Sets or returns the text content of the element and its descendants Element Object Methods Method Description appendChild() Adds a new child node to the end of the list of children of the node cloneNode() Clones a node compareDocumentPosition() Compares the document position of two nodes getAttribute() Returns the value of an attribute getAttributeNS() Returns the value of an attribute (with a namespace) getAttributeNode() Returns an attribute node as an Attribute object getAttributeNodeNS() Returns an attribute node (with a namespace) as an Attribute object getElementsByTagName() Returns a NodeList of matching element nodes, and their children getElementsByTagNameNS() Returns a NodeList of matching element nodes (with a namespace), and their children getFeature(feature,version) Returns a DOM object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version getUserData(key) Returns the object associated to a key on a this node. The object must first have been set to this node by calling setUserData with the same key hasAttribute() Returns whether an element has any attributes matching a specified name hasAttributeNS() Returns whether an element has any attributes matching a specified name and namespace hasAttributes() Returns whether the element has any attributes hasChildNodes() Returns whether the element has any child nodes insertBefore() Inserts a new child node before an existing child node isDefaultNamespace(URI) Returns whether the specified namespaceURI is the default isEqualNode() Checks if two nodes are equal lookupNamespaceURI() Returns the namespace URI matching a specified prefix lookupPrefix() Returns the prefix matching a specified namespace URI normalize() Puts all text nodes underneath this element (including attributes) 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 removeAttribute() Removes a specified attribute removeAttributeNS() Removes a specified attribute (with a namespace) removeAttributeNode() Removes a specified attribute node removeChild() Removes a child node replaceChild() Replaces a child node setUserData(key,data,handler) Associates an object to a key on the element setAttribute() Adds a new attribute setAttributeNS() Adds a new attribute (with a namespace) setAttributeNode() Adds a new attribute node setAttributeNodeNS(attrnode) Adds a new attribute node (with a namespace) setIdAttribute(name,isId) If the isId property of the Attribute object is true, this method declares the specified attribute to be a user-determined ID attribute setIdAttributeNS(uri,name,isId) If the isId property of the Attribute object is true, this method declares the specified attribute (with a namespace) to be a user-determined ID attribute setIdAttributeNode(idAttr,isId) If the isId property of the Attribute object is true, this method declares the specified attribute to be a user-determined ID attribute

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