Node

Summary

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

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

Mozilla Developer Network : [Node Article]
Microsoft Developer Network: [Basic DOM Reference Article]