This page is the W3C DOM Parser Documentation main page. It contains general documentation about XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C DOM Parser as well as links to the documentation for all of the objects provided by the W3C DOM Parser. The general documentation is located in the CONTENTS section below.

XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C DOM Parser Documentation is divided into multiple segments. Each segment represents the documentation for one of the objects provided by XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C DOM implementation. You may go directly to the documentation for a particular object by clicking one of the links in the W3C DOM PARSER OBJECT DOCUMENTATION section below.

NOTE: Some information contained in the documentation was sourced from http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/javadocs/api/index.html. This information is Copyright © 1999-2003 Apache XML Project. All Rights Reserved.

Additional inspiration and fact cross-checking from http://www.devguru.com - a site I found very useful.

CONTENTS

How do I get started with the W3C DOM Parser?

Can I use XPath expressions with the W3C DOM Parser?

What files do I need to include to use the W3C DOM Parser?

What does the DOM Object Model look like?

How does the W3C DOM Parser handle Entity characters?

How does the W3C DOM Parser handle namespaces?

What W3C Dom Objects and methods supported?

W3C DOM PARSER OBJECT DOCUMENTATION

DOMAttr Object Documentation

DOMCDATASection Object Documentation

DOMCharacterData Object Documentation

DOMComment Object Documentation

DOMDocument Object Documentation

DOMDocumentFragment Object Documentation

DOMElement Object Documentation

DOMException Object Documentation

DOMImplementation Object Documentation

DOMNamedNodeMap Object Documentation

DOMNode Object Documentation

DOMNodeList Object Documentation

DOMProcessingInstruction Object Documentation

DOMText Object Documentation

DOMDocumentType Object Documentation (not implemented)

DOMEntity Object Documentation (not implemented)

DOMEntityReference Object Documentation (not implemented)

DOMNotation Object Reference (not implemented)

It's very easy, really. Let's say you have the following XML:

and you want to get the text out of the TAG1 tag. After including the appropriate .js files, you would simply create code that looked like the following:

NOTE: Since the W3C DOM uses the SAX Parser to populate its object tree, you *must* include a reference to the SAX Parser (xmlsax.js or tinyxmlsax.js) in your HTML. See the what files do I need to include to use the W3C DOM Parser section below.

Yes, an XPath Contributed Add-on is available that supports many XPath expressions.

In order to use XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C DOM Parser, you must include the following .js files in your HTML Pages. The .js files starting with "tiny" have been compressed for faster downloads and are functionally identical to their non-compressed counterparts. The non compressed files may be found in the jsXMLParser directory. The compressed files may be found in the jsXMLParser/compressed directory.

• xmlw3cdom.js (or tinyxmlw3cdom.js)
• xmlsax.js (or tinyxmlsax.js)

NOTE: Since the W3C DOM uses the SAX Parser to populate its object tree, you *must* include a reference to the SAX Parser (xmlsax.js or tinyxmlsax.js) in your HTML.

XML for <SCRIPT>'s DOM object model follows the W3C's object model standards. The three primary objects are DOMNode, DOMImplementation and DOMNodeList. All other objects descend from one of these primary objects as described below.

• DOMImplementation
• DOMException
• DOMNode
  • DOMCharacterData
    • DOMComment
    • DOMText
      • DOMCDATASection
  • DOMAttr
  • DOMProcessingInstruction
  • DOMElement
  • DOMDocument
  • DOMDocumentFragment
• DOMNodeList
  • DOMNamedNodeMap

The following image displays XML for <SCRIPT>'s object hierarchy graphically.
Click on the image to display the model in a browser view suitable for printing.

Entities are character strings that represent other strings in XML. For example, the entity string &amp; represents the "&" character. Even though XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C DOM parser does not support the DOMEntity object, it does recognise the following "native" XML entities:

• &amp; which represents the "&" character
• &lt; which represents the "<" character
• &apos; which represents the "'" (apostrophe) character
• &quot; which represents the quote (") character

The entity characters above must be used in XML strings and attributes rather than the characters they represent in order for the XML string to be well formed. When read into the DOM, XML for <SCRIPT>'s W3C parser follows the W3C convention for converting the entity characters into their true form.

NOTE: The W3C convention states that entity characters are only converted into their true representation for DOMText and DOMAttr objects. All other objects pass their character data unmodified into the DOM.

When a DOMAttr or DOMText object is queried for it's nodeValue, the character the entity characters represent will be return. For example, consider the following XML string:

<NODE attr="&lt;hello&gt;">
&pos;text node&pos;
</NODE>

When the attribute's value is queried, the returned string will be "<hello>".
when the text node's value is queried, the returned string will be "'text node'".

When an XML for <SCRIPT> object has its getXML() method called, the method will convert all characters that require entity representation before returning from the function. In the example above:

getXML() on the attribute will return "&lt;hello&gt;"
getXML() on the text node will return "&pos;text node&pos;"

In translation, Nodes with namespaces have three components, a URI, a localname and a prefix. The combination of the local name and the prefix is called the qualified name, or QName.

For example, consider the following XML:

<ns1:tag xmlns:ns1="http://www.foo.com">

The namespace URI for the element is "http://www.foo.com" while the prefix is "ns1" and the localname is "tag". When an element or an attribute is created with namespace information included, the two parameters passed in are:

• The namespace URI
• The prefix and the local name separated by a colon.

Namespace URIs are associated with prefixes by using the attribute "xmlns". This association can happen in any element in the XML document. The "xmlns" attribute associates URIs with prefixes in the following way:

xmlns:<prefix>="<namespace URI"

A default namespace for an XML document can be assigned by using the "xmlns" attribute as well. If the prefix is left off of the "xmlns" attribute, the namespace URI specified becomes the default namespace URI for all elements in the XML document.

NOTE: Default namespaces for DOMElements are inherited. If one DOMElement node defines a default namespace, the DOMElement children of that DOMElement will be in that default namespace unless specified otherwise.

NOTE: DOMAttr nodes do not inherit any namespaces - including the default namespace. In order to associate an attribute with a namespace, that attribute name must include a prefix that is associated with a namespace URI.

XML for <SCRIPT> supports the following W3C DOM objects and methods: