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org.w3c.dom
Interface Node

All Known Subinterfaces:
Attr, CDATASection, CharacterData, Comment, Document, DocumentFragment, DocumentType, Element, Entity, EntityReference, HTMLAnchorElement, HTMLAppletElement, HTMLAreaElement, HTMLBaseElement, HTMLBaseFontElement, HTMLBlockquoteElement, HTMLBodyElement, HTMLBRElement, HTMLButtonElement, HTMLDirectoryElement, HTMLDivElement, HTMLDListElement, HTMLDocument, HTMLElement, HTMLFieldSetElement, HTMLFontElement, HTMLFormElement, HTMLFrameElement, HTMLFrameSetElement, HTMLHeadElement, HTMLHeadingElement, HTMLHRElement, HTMLHtmlElement, HTMLIFrameElement, HTMLImageElement, HTMLInputElement, HTMLIsIndexElement, HTMLLabelElement, HTMLLegendElement, HTMLLIElement, HTMLLinkElement, HTMLMapElement, HTMLMenuElement, HTMLMetaElement, HTMLModElement, HTMLObjectElement, HTMLOListElement, HTMLOptGroupElement, HTMLOptionElement, HTMLParagraphElement, HTMLParamElement, HTMLPreElement, HTMLQuoteElement, HTMLScriptElement, HTMLSelectElement, HTMLStyleElement, HTMLTableCaptionElement, HTMLTableCellElement, HTMLTableColElement, HTMLTableElement, HTMLTableRowElement, HTMLTableSectionElement, HTMLTextAreaElement, HTMLTitleElement, HTMLUListElement, Notation, ProcessingInstruction, Text, XPathNamespace
All Known Implementing Classes:
DTMNodeProxy, UnImplNode
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 name of attribute value of attribute null
CDATASection "#cdata-section" content of the CDATA Section null
Comment "#comment" content of the comment null
Document "#document" null null
DocumentFragment "#document-fragment" null null
DocumentType document type name null null
Element tag name null NamedNodeMap
Entity entity name null null
EntityReference name of entity referenced null null
Notation notation name null null
ProcessingInstruction target entire content excluding the target null
Text "#text" content of the text node null

See also the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 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.
 Node getFirstChild()
          The first child of this node.
 Node getLastChild()
          The last child of this node.
 java.lang.String getLocalName()
          Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
 java.lang.String getNamespaceURI()
          The namespace URI of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
 Node getNextSibling()
          The node immediately following this node.
 java.lang.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.
 java.lang.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.
 java.lang.String getPrefix()
          The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
 Node getPreviousSibling()
          The node immediately preceding 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(java.lang.String feature, java.lang.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(java.lang.String nodeValue)
          The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
 void setPrefix(java.lang.String prefix)
          The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
 

Field Detail

ELEMENT_NODE

public static final short ELEMENT_NODE
The node is an Element.

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

public static final short ATTRIBUTE_NODE
The node is an Attr.

TEXT_NODE

public static final short TEXT_NODE
The node is a Text node.

CDATA_SECTION_NODE

public static final short CDATA_SECTION_NODE
The node is a CDATASection.

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
The node is an EntityReference.

ENTITY_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_NODE
The node is an Entity.

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

public static final short PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
The node is a ProcessingInstruction.

COMMENT_NODE

public static final short COMMENT_NODE
The node is a Comment.

DOCUMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_NODE
The node is a Document.

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
The node is a DocumentType.

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
The node is a DocumentFragment.

NOTATION_NODE

public static final short NOTATION_NODE
The node is a Notation.
Method Detail

getNodeName

public java.lang.String getNodeName()
The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.

getNodeValue

public java.lang.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.
Throws:
DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.
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(java.lang.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.
Throws:
DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.
DOMException - DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised when it would return more characters than fit in a DOMString variable on the implementation platform.

getNodeType

public short getNodeType()
A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.

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.

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.

getFirstChild

public Node getFirstChild()
The first child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

getLastChild

public Node getLastChild()
The last child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

getPreviousSibling

public Node getPreviousSibling()
The node immediately preceding this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

getNextSibling

public Node getNextSibling()
The node immediately following this node. If there is no such node, this returns null.

getAttributes

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

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.

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.
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.
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.

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.
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.

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.

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.
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.

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.).
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 text it contains unless it is a deep clone, since the text is contained in a child Text node. Cloning an Attribute directly, as opposed to be cloned as part of an Element cloning operation, returns a specified attribute ( specified is true). 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 lookups) that depend on a particular document tree structure are to be used.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.

isSupported

public boolean isSupported(java.lang.String feature,
                           java.lang.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 java.lang.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 createElement from the Document interface, this is always null.Per the Namespaces in XML Specification 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.
Since:
DOM Level 2

getPrefix

public java.lang.String getPrefix()
The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
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.
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.
Throws:
DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix contains an illegal character, per the XML 1.0 specification .
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" .
Since:
DOM Level 2

setPrefix

public void setPrefix(java.lang.String prefix)
               throws DOMException
The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified.
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.
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.
Throws:
DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified prefix contains an illegal character, per the XML 1.0 specification .
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" .
Since:
DOM Level 2

getLocalName

public java.lang.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 createElement from the Document interface, this is always null.
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
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