org.w3c.dom
Interface Node

All Known Subinterfaces:

Attr, CDATASection, CharacterData, Comment, Document, DocumentFragment, DocumentType, Element, Entity, EntityReference, Notation, ProcessingInstruction, Text

public interface Node

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.

The values of nodeName, nodeValue, and attributes vary according to the node type as follows:

Interface	nodeName	nodeValue	attributes
Attr	same as Attr.name	same as Attr.value	null
CDATASection	"#cdata-section"	same as CharacterData.data, the content of the CDATA Section	null
Comment	"#comment"	same as CharacterData.data, the content of the comment	null
Document	"#document"	null	null
DocumentFragment	"#document-fragment"	null	null
DocumentType	same as DocumentType.name	null	null
Element	same as Element.tagName	null	NamedNodeMap
Entity	entity name	null	null
EntityReference	name of entity referenced	null	null
Notation	notation name	null	null
ProcessingInstruction	same as ProcessingInstruction.target	same as ProcessingInstruction.data	null
Text	"#text"	same as CharacterData.data, the content of the text node	null

See also the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification and the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification.

Field Summary

static short	ATTRIBUTE_NODE The node is an Attr.
static short	CDATA_SECTION_NODE The node is a CDATASection.
static short	COMMENT_NODE The node is a Comment.
static short	DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE The node is a DocumentFragment.
static short	DOCUMENT_NODE The node is a Document.
static short	DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE The node is a DocumentType.
static short	ELEMENT_NODE The node is an Element.
static short	ENTITY_NODE The node is an Entity.
static short	ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE The node is an EntityReference.
static short	NOTATION_NODE The node is a Notation.
static short	PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE The node is a ProcessingInstruction.
static short	TEXT_NODE The node is a Text node.

Method Summary

Node	appendChild(Node newChild) Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node.
Node	cloneNode(boolean deep) Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes.
NamedNodeMap	getAttributes() A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes of this node (if it is an Element) or null otherwise.
NodeList	getChildNodes() A NodeList that contains all children of this node.
Object	getFeature(String feature, String version) This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in DOM Features.
Node	getFirstChild() The first child of this node.
Node	getLastChild() The last child of this node.
String	getLocalName() Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
String	getNamespaceURI() The namespace URI of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
Node	getNextSibling() The node immediately following this node.
String	getNodeName() The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
short	getNodeType() A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.
String	getNodeValue() The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
Document	getOwnerDocument() The Document object associated with this node.
Node	getParentNode() The parent of this node.
String	getPrefix() The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
Node	getPreviousSibling() The node immediately preceding this node.
String	getTextContent() This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
Object	getUserData(String key) Retrieves the object associated to a key on a this node.
boolean	hasAttributes() Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes.
boolean	hasChildNodes() Returns whether this node has any children.
Node	insertBefore(Node newChild, Node refChild) Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild.
boolean	isSupported(String feature, String version) Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node.
void	normalize() Puts all Text 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.
Node	removeChild(Node oldChild) Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, and returns it.
Node	replaceChild(Node newChild, Node oldChild) Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns the oldChild node.
void	setNodeValue(String nodeValue) The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
void	setPrefix(String prefix) The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
void	setTextContent(String textContent) This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
Object	setUserData(String key, Object data, UserDataHandler handler) Associate an object to a key on this node.

Field Detail

ELEMENT_NODE

public static final short ELEMENT_NODE

The node is an Element.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

public static final short ATTRIBUTE_NODE

The node is an Attr.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

TEXT_NODE

public static final short TEXT_NODE

The node is a Text node.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

CDATA_SECTION_NODE

public static final short CDATA_SECTION_NODE

The node is a CDATASection.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

The node is an EntityReference.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

ENTITY_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_NODE

The node is an Entity.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

public static final short PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

The node is a ProcessingInstruction.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

COMMENT_NODE

public static final short COMMENT_NODE

The node is a Comment.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

DOCUMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_NODE

The node is a Document.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

The node is a DocumentType.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

The node is a DocumentFragment.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

NOTATION_NODE

public static final short NOTATION_NODE

The node is a Notation.

See Also:

Constant Field Values

Method Detail

getNodeName

public String getNodeName()

The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.

Returns:

the name of this node

getNodeValue

public String getNodeValue()
                    throws DOMException

The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect.

Returns:

a String containing the value of this node

Throws:

DOMException - DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters than fit in a DOMString variable on the implementation platform.

setNodeValue

public void setNodeValue(String nodeValue)
                  throws DOMException

The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect, including if the node is read-only.

Parameters:

nodeValue - the value of the node

Throws:

DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly and if it is not defined to be null.

getNodeType

public short getNodeType()

A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.

Returns:

A code representing the type of the underlying object

getParentNode

public Node getParentNode()

The parent of this node. All nodes, except Attr, 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.

Returns:

The parent of this node, or null

getChildNodes

public NodeList getChildNodes()

A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no children, this is a NodeList containing no nodes.

Returns:

A NodeList that contains all children of this node.

getFirstChild

public Node getFirstChild()

The first child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

Returns:

The first child of this node or null

getLastChild

public Node getLastChild()

The last child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

Returns:

The last child of this node or null.

getPreviousSibling

public Node getPreviousSibling()

The node immediately preceding this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

Returns:

The node immediately preceding this node or null

getNextSibling

public Node getNextSibling()

The node immediately following this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

Returns:

The node immediately following this node or null

getAttributes

public NamedNodeMap getAttributes()

A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes of this node (if it is an Element) or null otherwise.

Returns:

A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes of this node, or null

getOwnerDocument

public Document getOwnerDocument()

The Document 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.

Returns:

The Document object associated with this node, or null

Since:

DOM Level 2

insertBefore

public Node insertBefore(Node newChild,
                         Node refChild)
                  throws DOMException

Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild. If refChild is null, insert newChild at the end of the list of children.
If 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.

Note: Inserting a node before itself is implementation dependent.

Parameters:

newChild - The node to insert.

refChild - The reference node, i.e., the node before which the new node must be inserted.

Returns:

The node being inserted.

Throws:

DOMException - HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to insert is one of this node's ancestors or this node itself, or if this node is of type Document and the DOM application attempts to insert a second DocumentType or Element node.
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.
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 refChild is not a child of this node.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: if this node is of type Document, this exception might be raised if the DOM implementation doesn't support the insertion of a DocumentType or Element node.

Since:

DOM Level 3

replaceChild

public Node replaceChild(Node newChild,
                         Node oldChild)
                  throws DOMException

Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns the oldChild node.
If 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.

Parameters:

newChild - The new node to put in the child list.

oldChild - The node being replaced in the list.

Returns:

The node replaced.

Throws:

DOMException - HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to put in is one of this node's ancestors or this node itself, or if this node is of type Document and the result of the replacement operation would add a second DocumentType or Element on the Document node.
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node or the parent of the new node is readonly.
NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: if this node is of type Document, this exception might be raised if the DOM implementation doesn't support the replacement of the DocumentType child or Element child.

Since:

DOM Level 3

removeChild

public Node removeChild(Node oldChild)
                 throws DOMException

Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, and returns it.

Parameters:

oldChild - The node being removed.

Returns:

The node removed.

Throws:

DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: if this node is of type Document, this exception might be raised if the DOM implementation doesn't support the removal of the DocumentType child or the Element child.

Since:

DOM Level 3

appendChild

public Node appendChild(Node newChild)
                 throws DOMException

Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.

Parameters:

newChild - The node to add.If it is a DocumentFragment object, the entire contents of the document fragment are moved into the child list of this node

Returns:

The node added.

Throws:

DOMException - HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to append is one of this node's ancestors or this node itself, or if this node is of type Document and the DOM application attempts to append a second DocumentType or Element node.
WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created this node.
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly or if the previous parent of the node being inserted is readonly.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: if the newChild node is a child of the Document node, this exception might be raised if the DOM implementation doesn't support the removal of the DocumentType child or Element child.

Since:

DOM Level 3

hasChildNodes

public boolean hasChildNodes()

Returns whether this node has any children.

Returns:

true if this node has any children, false otherwise.

cloneNode

public Node cloneNode(boolean deep)

Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes. The duplicate node has no parent ( parentNode is null) and no user data. User data associated to the imported node is not carried over. However, if any UserDataHandlers has been specified along with the associated data these handlers will be called with the appropriate parameters before this method returns.
Cloning an 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 children it contains unless it is a deep clone. This includes text contained in an the Element since the text is contained in a child Text node. Cloning an Attr directly, as opposed to be cloned as part of an Element cloning operation, returns a specified attribute (specified is true). Cloning an Attr always clones its children, since they represent its value, no matter whether this is a deep clone or not. Cloning an EntityReference automatically constructs its subtree if a corresponding Entity is available, no matter whether this is a deep clone or not. Cloning any other type of node simply returns a copy of this node.
Note that cloning an immutable subtree results in a mutable copy, but the children of an EntityReference clone are readonly . In addition, clones of unspecified Attr nodes are specified. And, cloning Document, DocumentType, Entity, and Notation nodes is implementation dependent.

Parameters:

deep - If true, recursively clone the subtree under the specified node; if false, clone only the node itself (and its attributes, if it is an Element).

Returns:

The duplicate node.

normalize

public void normalize()

Puts all Text 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.

Since:

DOM Level 2

isSupported

public boolean isSupported(String feature,
                           String version)

Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node.

Parameters:

feature - The name of the feature to test. This is the same name which can be passed to the method hasFeature on DOMImplementation.

version - This is the version number of the feature to test. In Level 2, version 1, this is the string "2.0". If the version is not specified, supporting any version of the feature will cause the method to return true.

Returns:

Returns true if the specified feature is supported on this node, false otherwise.

Since:

DOM Level 2

getNamespaceURI

public String getNamespaceURI()

The namespace URI of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
This is not a computed value that is the result of a namespace lookup based on an examination of the namespace declarations in scope. It is merely the namespace URI given at creation time.
For nodes of any type other than ELEMENT_NODE and ATTRIBUTE_NODE and nodes created with a DOM Level 1 method, such as Document.createElement, this is always null.

Note: Per the Namespaces in XML Specification [XML 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.

Returns:

The namespace URI of this node, or null

Since:

DOM Level 2

getPrefix

public String getPrefix()

The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect, including if the node is read-only.
Note that setting this attribute, when permitted, changes the nodeName attribute, which holds the qualified name, as well as the tagName and name attributes of the Element and Attr interfaces, when applicable.
Setting the prefix to null makes it unspecified, setting it to an empty string is implementation dependent.
Note also that changing the prefix of an attribute that is known to have a default value, does not make a new attribute with the default value and the original prefix appear, since the namespaceURI and localName do not change.
For nodes of any type other than 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.

Returns:

The namespace prefix of this node, or null

Since:

DOM Level 2

setPrefix

public void setPrefix(String prefix)
               throws DOMException

The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect, including if the node is read-only. Note: This means that the value of the prefix is not changed and no exception is thrown in the case where the node is read-only.
Note that setting this attribute, when permitted, changes the nodeName attribute, which holds the qualified name, as well as the tagName and name attributes of the Element and Attr interfaces, when applicable.
Setting the prefix to null makes it unspecified, setting it to an empty string is implementation dependent.
Note also that changing the prefix of an attribute that is known to have a default value, does not make a new attribute with the default value and the original prefix appear, since the namespaceURI and localName do not change. Note: The prefix will thereby not be changed.
For nodes of any type other than 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: This also means that the implementation will not throw any exception.

Parameters:

prefix - This node namespace prefix.

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix contains an illegal character according to the XML version in use (1.0 for JSR 280).
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix is malformed per the Namespaces in XML specification, if the namespaceURI of this node is null, if the specified prefix is "xml" and the namespaceURI of this node is different from " http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" , if this node is an attribute and the specified prefix is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI of this node is different from "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/", or if this node is an attribute and the qualifiedName of this node is "xmlns" [XML Namespaces].

Since:

DOM Level 2

getLocalName

public String getLocalName()

Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
For nodes of any type other than ELEMENT_NODE and ATTRIBUTE_NODE and nodes created with a DOM Level 1 method, such as Document.createElement, this is always null.

Returns:

the local part of the qualified name of this node

Since:

DOM Level 2

hasAttributes

public boolean hasAttributes()

Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes.

Returns:

true if this node has any attributes, false otherwise.

Since:

DOM Level 2

getTextContent

public String getTextContent()
                      throws DOMException

This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect. On setting, any possible children this node may have are removed and, if it the new string is not empty or null, replaced by a single Text node containing the string this attribute is set to.
On getting, no serialization is performed, the returned string does not contain any markup. No whitespace normalization is performed and the returned string does not contain the white spaces in element content (see the attribute Text.isElementContentWhitespace). Similarly, on setting, no parsing is performed either, the input string is taken as pure textual content.
The string returned is made of the text content of this node depending on its type, as defined below:

Node type	Content
ELEMENT_NODE, ATTRIBUTE_NODE, ENTITY_NODE, ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE, DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE	concatenation of the textContent attribute value of every child node, excluding COMMENT_NODE and PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE nodes. This is the empty string if the node has no children.
TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE, PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE	nodeValue
DOCUMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE, NOTATION_NODE	null

Returns:

a String containing the text content of this node and its descendants

Throws:

DOMException - DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters than fit in a DOMString variable on the implementation platform.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setTextContent

public void setTextContent(String textContent)
                    throws DOMException

This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants. When it is defined to be null, setting it has no effect. On setting, any possible children this node may have are removed and, if it the new string is not empty or null, replaced by a single Text node containing the string this attribute is set to.
On getting, no serialization is performed, the returned string does not contain any markup. No whitespace normalization is performed and the returned string does not contain the white spaces in element content (see the attribute Text.isElementContentWhitespace). Similarly, on setting, no parsing is performed either, the input string is taken as pure textual content.
The string returned is made of the text content of this node depending on its type, as defined below:

Node type	Content
ELEMENT_NODE, ATTRIBUTE_NODE, ENTITY_NODE, ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE, DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE	concatenation of the textContent attribute value of every child node, excluding COMMENT_NODE and PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE nodes. This is the empty string if the node has no children.
TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE, PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE	nodeValue
DOCUMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE, NOTATION_NODE	null

Parameters:

textContent - a String containing the new text content for this node

Throws:

DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.

Since:

DOM Level 3

getFeature

public Object getFeature(String feature,
                         String version)

This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in DOM Features. The specialized object may also be obtained by using binding-specific casting methods but is not necessarily expected to, as discussed in Mixed DOM Implementations. This method also allows the implementation to provide specialized objects which do not support the Node interface.

Note: when using the methods that take a feature and a version as parameters, applications can use null or empty string for the version parameter if they don't wish to specify a particular version for the specified feature.

Parameters:

feature - The name of the feature requested. Note that any plus sign "+" prepended to the name of the feature will be ignored since it is not significant in the context of this method.

version - This is the version number of the feature to test.

Returns:

Returns an object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, if any, or null if there is no object which implements interfaces associated with that feature. If the DOMObject returned by this method implements the Node interface, it must delegate to the primary core Node and not return results inconsistent with the primary core Node such as attributes, childNodes, etc.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setUserData

public Object setUserData(String key,
                          Object data,
                          UserDataHandler handler)

Associate an object to a key on this node. The object can later be retrieved from this node by calling getUserData with the same key.

Parameters:

key - The key to associate the object to.

data - The object to associate to the given key, or null to remove any existing association to that key.

handler - The handler to associate to that key, or null.

Returns:

Returns the DOMUserData previously associated to the given key on this node, or null if there was none.

Since:

DOM Level 3

getUserData

public Object getUserData(String key)

Retrieves 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.

Parameters:

key - The key the object is associated to.

Returns:

Returns the DOMUserData associated to the given key on this node, or null if there was none.

Since:

DOM Level 3