Node (Org.W3C.DOM Package)

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. The specialized interfaces may contain additional and more convenient mechanisms to get and set the relevant information.

The NodeTypes are as follows:

ELEMENT_NODE

public static final short ELEMENT_NODE

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

public static final short ATTRIBUTE_NODE

TEXT_NODE

public static final short TEXT_NODE

CDATA_SECTION_NODE

public static final short CDATA_SECTION_NODE

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

ENTITY_NODE

public static final short ENTITY_NODE

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

public static final short PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

COMMENT_NODE

public static final short COMMENT_NODE

DOCUMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_NODE

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

public static final short DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

NOTATION_NODE

public static final short NOTATION_NODE .

See the following for methods.

appendChild

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.

Syntax:

public Node appendChild(Node newChild)
           throws DOMException

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.

Return value:

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.

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 Read-only.

cloneNode

Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes. The duplicate node has no parent ( parentNode returns 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 any other type of node simply returns a copy of this node.

Syntax:

public Node cloneNode(boolean deep)

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).

Return value:

The duplicate node.

getAttributes

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

Syntax:

public NamedNodeMap getAttributes()

getChildNodes

A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no children, this is a NodeList containing no nodes. The content of the returned NodeList is "live". For instance, changes to the children of the node object that it was created from are immediately reflected in the nodes returned by the NodeList accessors; it is not a static snapshot of the content of the node. This is true for every NodeList, including the ones returned by the getElementsByTagName method.

Syntax:

public NodeList getChildNodes()

getFirstChild

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

Syntax:

public Node getFirstChild()

getLastChild

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

Syntax:

public Node getLastChild()

getNextSibling

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

Syntax:

public Node getNextSibling()

getNodeName

The name of this node, depending on its type. See the NodeType preceding list.

Syntax:

public java.lang.String getNodeName()

getNodeType

A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined in the NodeType preceding list.

Syntax:

public short getNodeType()

getNodeValue

The value of this node, depending on its type. See the NodeType preceding list.

Syntax:

public java.lang.String getNodeValue()
            throws DOMException

Throws:

DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is Read-only.

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

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 this is null.

Syntax:

public Document getOwnerDocument()

getParentNode

The parent of this node. All nodes, except Document, DocumentFragment, and Attr 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.

Syntax:

public Node getParentNode()

getPreviousSibling

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

Syntax:

public Node getPreviousSibling()

hasChildNodes

This is a convenience method to allow easy determination of whether a node has any children.

Syntax:

public boolean hasChildNodes()

Return value:

True if the node has any children, false if the node has no children.

insertBefore

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.

Syntax:

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

Parameters:

newChild - The node to insert.

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

Return value:

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.

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 Read-only.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if refChild is not a child of this node.

removeChild

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

Syntax:

public Node removeChild(Node oldChild)
        throws DOMException

Parameters:

oldChild - The node being removed.

Return value:

The node removed.

Throws:

DOMException - NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is Read-only.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

replaceChild

Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns the oldChild node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.

Syntax:

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

Parameters:

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

oldChild - The node being replaced in the list.

Return value:

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 it the node to put in is one of this node's ancestors.

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 Read-only.

NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

setNodeValue

Syntax:

public void setNodeValue(java.lang.String nodeValue)
             throws DOMException