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Node

Summary

The interface for the primary data type for the entire Document Object Model.

Inherits from EventTargetEventTarget

Overview

The Node interface is the primary datatype for the entire Document Object Model (DOM). It represents a single node in the document tree.

Properties

attributes
Associatve array containing the attributes of node.
childNodes
Gets a collection of direct Node descendants of the Node, including Element, Text and any other type of nodes.
firstChild
Gets a reference to the first child node in the childNodes collection of the object. If the node is childless, null is returned.
lastChild
Gets a reference to the last child in the childNodes collection of an object.
localName
Retrieves the local name of the fully qualified XML declaration for a node.
namespaceURI
Retrieves the namespace URI of the fully qualified XML declaration for a node.
nextSibling
Retrieves the next child node of the parent of the node.
nodeName
Gets the name of a particular type of node.
nodeType
Retrieves the type of the requested node.
nodeValue
Gets or sets the value of a Node, if the type of Node supports it.
ownerDocument
Retrieves the document object associated with the node.
parentNode
Retrieves the parent node in the document hierarchy.
prefix
Sets or retrieves the prefix of the fully qualified XML declaration for a node.
previousSibling
Retrieves the previous child node of the parent of the node.
textContent
Sets or retrieves the text content of a node and any child nodes.

Methods

appendChild
Appends an element as a child to the object.
cloneNode
Copies a reference to the object from the document hierarchy.
compareDocumentPosition
Compares the position of two nodes in a document.
empty
Cancels the current selection, sets the selection type to none, and sets the item property to null.
hasAttributes
Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes
hasChildNodes
Gets a value that indicates whether the Node has any direct Node descendant of any type.
insertBefore
Inserts a child into the node, immediately before the specified reference child node.
isDefaultNamespace
Indicates whether or not a namespace is the default namespace for a document.
isEqualNode
Determines whether two nodes are equal in their type, name and namespace.
isSameNode
Determines if two nodes are the same node.
isSupported
Returns a value indicating whether or not the object supports a specific DOM standard.
lookupNamespaceURI
Gets the URI of the namespace associated with a namespace prefix, if any.
lookupPrefix
Gets the namespace prefix associated with a URI, if any.
normalize
Merges adjacent DOM objects to produce a normalized document object model.
removeChild
Removes a child node from a node.
replaceChild
Replaces an existing child node with a new child node.

Events

No events.

Inherited from EventTarget

Properties

No properties.

Methods

addEventListener
Registers an event handler for the specified event type.
dispatchEvent
Sends an event to the current element.
removeEventListener
Removes an event handler that the addEventListener method registered.

Events

No events.

Notes

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. 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 (i.e., 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.

Related specifications

DOM Level 3 Core
Recommendation

Attributions