org.w3c.dom
Interface Document

All Known Subinterfaces:

HTMLDocument, WMLDocument

All Known Implementing Classes:

CoreDocumentImpl

public interface Document

extends Node

The Document interface represents the entire HTML or XML document. Conceptually, it is the root of the document tree, and provides the primary access to the document's data.

Since elements, text nodes, comments, processing instructions, etc. cannot exist outside the context of a Document, the Document interface also contains the factory methods needed to create these objects. The Node objects created have a ownerDocument attribute which associates them with the Document within whose context they were created.

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

Fields inherited from interface org.w3c.dom.Node

ATTRIBUTE_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE, ELEMENT_NODE, ENTITY_NODE, ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE, NOTATION_NODE, PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE, TEXT_NODE

Method Summary

Node	adoptNode(Node source) EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
Attr	createAttribute(java.lang.String name) Creates an Attr of the given name.
Attr	createAttributeNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI, java.lang.String qualifiedName) Creates an attribute of the given qualified name and namespace URI.
CDATASection	createCDATASection(java.lang.String data) Creates a CDATASection node whose value is the specified string.
Comment	createComment(java.lang.String data) Creates a Comment node given the specified string.
DocumentFragment	createDocumentFragment() Creates an empty DocumentFragment object.
Element	createElement(java.lang.String tagName) Creates an element of the type specified.
Element	createElementNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI, java.lang.String qualifiedName) Creates an element of the given qualified name and namespace URI.
EntityReference	createEntityReference(java.lang.String name) Creates an EntityReference object.
ProcessingInstruction	createProcessingInstruction(java.lang.String target, java.lang.String data) Creates a ProcessingInstruction node given the specified name and data strings.
Text	createTextNode(java.lang.String data) Creates a Text node given the specified string.
DocumentType	getDoctype() The Document Type Declaration (see DocumentType) associated with this document.
Element	getDocumentElement() This is a convenience attribute that allows direct access to the child node that is the root element of the document.
Element	getElementById(java.lang.String elementId) Returns the Element whose ID is given by elementId.
NodeList	getElementsByTagName(java.lang.String tagname) Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given tag name in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.
NodeList	getElementsByTagNameNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI, java.lang.String localName) Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given local name and namespace URI in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.
java.lang.String	getEncoding() EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
DOMImplementation	getImplementation() The DOMImplementation object that handles this document.
boolean	getStandalone() EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
boolean	getStrictErrorChecking() EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
java.lang.String	getVersion() EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
Node	importNode(Node importedNode, boolean deep) Imports a node from another document to this document.
void	setEncoding(java.lang.String encoding) EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
void	setStandalone(boolean standalone) EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
void	setStrictErrorChecking(boolean strictErrorChecking) EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..
void	setVersion(java.lang.String version) EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

Methods inherited from interface org.w3c.dom.Node

appendChild, cloneNode, getAttributes, getChildNodes, getFirstChild, getLastChild, getLocalName, getNamespaceURI, getNextSibling, getNodeName, getNodeType, getNodeValue, getOwnerDocument, getParentNode, getPrefix, getPreviousSibling, hasAttributes, hasChildNodes, insertBefore, isSupported, normalize, removeChild, replaceChild, setNodeValue, setPrefix

Method Detail

getDoctype

public DocumentType getDoctype()

The Document Type Declaration (see DocumentType) associated with this document. For HTML documents as well as XML documents without a document type declaration this returns null. The DOM Level 2 does not support editing the Document Type Declaration. docType cannot be altered in any way, including through the use of methods inherited from the Node interface, such as insertNode or removeNode.

getImplementation

public DOMImplementation getImplementation()

The DOMImplementation object that handles this document. A DOM application may use objects from multiple implementations.

getDocumentElement

public Element getDocumentElement()

This is a convenience attribute that allows direct access to the child node that is the root element of the document. For HTML documents, this is the element with the tagName "HTML".

createElement

public Element createElement(java.lang.String tagName)
                      throws DOMException

Creates an element of the type specified. Note that the instance returned implements the Element interface, so attributes can be specified directly on the returned object.
In addition, if there are known attributes with default values, Attr nodes representing them are automatically created and attached to the element.
To create an element with a qualified name and namespace URI, use the createElementNS method.

Parameters:

tagNameThe - name of the element type to instantiate. For XML, this is case-sensitive. For HTML, the tagName parameter may be provided in any case, but it must be mapped to the canonical uppercase form by the DOM implementation.

Returns:

A new Element object with the nodeName attribute set to tagName, and localName, prefix, and namespaceURI set to null.

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.

createDocumentFragment

public DocumentFragment createDocumentFragment()

Creates an empty DocumentFragment object.

Returns:

A new DocumentFragment.

createTextNode

public Text createTextNode(java.lang.String data)

Creates a Text node given the specified string.

Parameters:

dataThe - data for the node.

Returns:

The new Text object.

createComment

public Comment createComment(java.lang.String data)

Creates a Comment node given the specified string.

Parameters:

dataThe - data for the node.

Returns:

The new Comment object.

createCDATASection

public CDATASection createCDATASection(java.lang.String data)
                                throws DOMException

Creates a CDATASection node whose value is the specified string.

Parameters:

dataThe - data for the CDATASection contents.

Returns:

The new CDATASection object.

Throws:

DOMException - NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document.

createProcessingInstruction

public ProcessingInstruction createProcessingInstruction(java.lang.String target,
                                                         java.lang.String data)
                                                  throws DOMException

Creates a ProcessingInstruction node given the specified name and data strings.

Parameters:

targetThe - target part of the processing instruction.

dataThe - data for the node.

Returns:

The new ProcessingInstruction object.

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified target contains an illegal character.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document.

createAttribute

public Attr createAttribute(java.lang.String name)
                     throws DOMException

Creates an Attr of the given name. Note that the Attr instance can then be set on an Element using the setAttributeNode method.
To create an attribute with a qualified name and namespace URI, use the createAttributeNS method.

Parameters:

nameThe - name of the attribute.

Returns:

A new Attr object with the nodeName attribute set to name, and localName, prefix, and namespaceURI set to null. The value of the attribute is the empty string.

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.

createEntityReference

public EntityReference createEntityReference(java.lang.String name)
                                      throws DOMException

Creates an EntityReference object. In addition, if the referenced entity is known, the child list of the EntityReference node is made the same as that of the corresponding Entity node.If any descendant of the Entity node has an unbound namespace prefix, the corresponding descendant of the created EntityReference node is also unbound; (its namespaceURI is null). The DOM Level 2 does not support any mechanism to resolve namespace prefixes.

Parameters:

nameThe - name of the entity to reference.

Returns:

The new EntityReference object.

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document.

getElementsByTagName

public NodeList getElementsByTagName(java.lang.String tagname)

Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given tag name in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.

Parameters:

tagnameThe - name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags.

Returns:

A new NodeList object containing all the matched Elements.

importNode

public Node importNode(Node importedNode,
                       boolean deep)
                throws DOMException

Imports a node from another document to this document. The returned node has no parent; (parentNode is null). The source node is not altered or removed from the original document; this method creates a new copy of the source node.
For all nodes, importing a node creates a node object owned by the importing document, with attribute values identical to the source node's nodeName and nodeType, plus the attributes related to namespaces (prefix, localName, and namespaceURI). As in the cloneNode operation on a Node, the source node is not altered.
Additional information is copied as appropriate to the nodeType, attempting to mirror the behavior expected if a fragment of XML or HTML source was copied from one document to another, recognizing that the two documents may have different DTDs in the XML case. The following list describes the specifics for each type of node.

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

The ownerElement attribute is set to null and the specified flag is set to true on the generated Attr. The descendants of the source Attr are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. Note that the deep parameter has no effect on Attr nodes; they always carry their children with them when imported.

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

If the deep option was set to true, the descendants of the source element are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. Otherwise, this simply generates an empty DocumentFragment.

DOCUMENT_NODE

Document nodes cannot be imported.

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

DocumentType nodes cannot be imported.

ELEMENT_NODE

Specified attribute nodes of the source element are imported, and the generated Attr nodes are attached to the generated Element. Default attributes are not copied, though if the document being imported into defines default attributes for this element name, those are assigned. If the importNode deep parameter was set to true, the descendants of the source element are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree.

ENTITY_NODE

Entity nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM.On import, the publicId, systemId, and notationName attributes are copied. If a deep import is requested, the descendants of the the source Entity are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree.

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

Only the EntityReference itself is copied, even if a deep import is requested, since the source and destination documents might have defined the entity differently. If the document being imported into provides a definition for this entity name, its value is assigned.

NOTATION_NODE

Notation nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM.On import, the publicId and systemId attributes are copied. Note that the deep parameter has no effect on Notation nodes since they never have any children.

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

The imported node copies its target and data values from those of the source node.

TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE

These three types of nodes inheriting from CharacterData copy their data and length attributes from those of the source node.

Parameters:

importedNodeThe - node to import.

deepIf - true, recursively import the subtree under the specified node; if false, import only the node itself, as explained above. This has no effect on Attr , EntityReference, and Notation nodes.

Returns:

The imported node that belongs to this Document.

Throws:

DOMException - NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the type of node being imported is not supported.

Since:

DOM Level 2

createElementNS

public Element createElementNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI,
                               java.lang.String qualifiedName)
                        throws DOMException

Creates an element of the given qualified name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.

Parameters:

namespaceURIThe - namespace URI of the element to create.

qualifiedNameThe - qualified name of the element type to instantiate.

Returns:

A new Element object with the following attributes:AttributeValueNode.nodeName qualifiedNameNode.namespaceURI namespaceURINode.prefixprefix, extracted from qualifiedName, or null if there is no prefixNode.localNamelocal name, extracted from qualifiedNameElement.tagName qualifiedName

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character.
NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, if the qualifiedName has a prefix and the namespaceURI is null, or if the qualifiedName has a prefix that is "xml" and the namespaceURI is different from " http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" .

Since:

DOM Level 2

createAttributeNS

public Attr createAttributeNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI,
                              java.lang.String qualifiedName)
                       throws DOMException

Creates an attribute of the given qualified name and namespace URI. HTML-only DOM implementations do not need to implement this method.

Parameters:

namespaceURIThe - namespace URI of the attribute to create.

qualifiedNameThe - qualified name of the attribute to instantiate.

Returns:

A new Attr object with the following attributes: AttributeValueNode.nodeNamequalifiedName Node.namespaceURInamespaceURI Node.prefixprefix, extracted from qualifiedName, or null if there is no prefixNode.localNamelocal name, extracted from qualifiedNameAttr.name qualifiedNameNode.nodeValuethe empty string

Throws:

DOMException - INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified qualified name contains an illegal character.
NAMESPACE_ERR: Raised if the qualifiedName is malformed, if the qualifiedName has a prefix and the namespaceURI is null, if the qualifiedName has a prefix that is "xml" and the namespaceURI is different from " http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace", or if the qualifiedName is "xmlns" and the namespaceURI is different from " http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/".

Since:

DOM Level 2

getElementsByTagNameNS

public NodeList getElementsByTagNameNS(java.lang.String namespaceURI,
                                       java.lang.String localName)

Returns a NodeList of all the Elements with a given local name and namespace URI in the order in which they are encountered in a preorder traversal of the Document tree.

Parameters:

namespaceURIThe - namespace URI of the elements to match on. The special value "*" matches all namespaces.

localNameThe - local name of the elements to match on. The special value "*" matches all local names.

Returns:

A new NodeList object containing all the matched Elements.

Since:

DOM Level 2

getElementById

public Element getElementById(java.lang.String elementId)

Returns the Element whose ID is given by elementId. If no such element exists, returns null. Behavior is not defined if more than one element has this ID. The DOM implementation must have information that says which attributes are of type ID. Attributes with the name "ID" are not of type ID unless so defined. Implementations that do not know whether attributes are of type ID or not are expected to return null.

Parameters:

elementIdThe - unique id value for an element.

Returns:

The matching element.

Since:

DOM Level 2

getEncoding

public java.lang.String getEncoding()

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the encoding of this document. This is null when unspecified.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setEncoding

public void setEncoding(java.lang.String encoding)

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the encoding of this document. This is null when unspecified.

Since:

DOM Level 3

getStandalone

public boolean getStandalone()

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, whether this document is standalone.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setStandalone

public void setStandalone(boolean standalone)

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, whether this document is standalone.

Since:

DOM Level 3

getStrictErrorChecking

public boolean getStrictErrorChecking()

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying whether errors checking is enforced or not. When set to false, the implementation is free to not test every possible error case normally defined on DOM operations, and not raise any DOMException. In case of error, the behavior is undefined. This attribute is true by defaults.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setStrictErrorChecking

public void setStrictErrorChecking(boolean strictErrorChecking)

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying whether errors checking is enforced or not. When set to false, the implementation is free to not test every possible error case normally defined on DOM operations, and not raise any DOMException. In case of error, the behavior is undefined. This attribute is true by defaults.

Since:

DOM Level 3

getVersion

public java.lang.String getVersion()

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the version number of this document. This is null when unspecified.

Since:

DOM Level 3

setVersion

public void setVersion(java.lang.String version)

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the version number of this document. This is null when unspecified.

Since:

DOM Level 3

adoptNode

public Node adoptNode(Node source)
               throws DOMException

EXPERIMENTAL! Based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Working Draft of 5 June 2001..

Changes the ownerDocument of a node, its children, as well as the attached attribute nodes if there are any. If the node has a parent it is first removed from its parent child list. This effectively allows moving a subtree from one document to another. The following list describes the specifics for each type of node.

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

The ownerElement attribute is set to null and the specified flag is set to true on the adopted Attr. The descendants of the source Attr are recursively adopted.

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

The descendants of the source node are recursively adopted.

DOCUMENT_NODE

Document nodes cannot be adopted.

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

DocumentType nodes cannot be adopted.

ELEMENT_NODE

Specified attribute nodes of the source element are adopted, and the generated Attr nodes. Default attributes are discarded, though if the document being adopted into defines default attributes for this element name, those are assigned. The descendants of the source element are recursively adopted.

ENTITY_NODE

Entity nodes cannot be adopted.

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

Only the EntityReference node itself is adopted, the descendants are discarded, since the source and destination documents might have defined the entity differently. If the document being imported into provides a definition for this entity name, its value is assigned.

NOTATION_NODE

Notation nodes cannot be adopted.

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE, TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE

These nodes can all be adopted. No specifics.

Should this method simply return null when it fails? How "exceptional" is failure for this method?Stick with raising exceptions only in exceptional circumstances, return null on failure (F2F 19 Jun 2000).Can an entity node really be adopted?No, neither can Notation nodes (Telcon 13 Dec 2000).Does this affect keys and hashCode's of the adopted subtree nodes?If so, what about readonly-ness of key and hashCode?if not, would appendChild affect keys/hashCodes or would it generate exceptions if key's are duplicate? Update: Hashcodes have been dropped. Given that the key is only unique within a document an adopted node needs to be given a new key, but what does it mean for the application?

Parameters:

source - The node to move into this document.

Returns:

The adopted node, or null if this operation fails, such as when the source node comes from a different implementation.

Throws:

DOMException - NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the source node is of type DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT_TYPE.
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the source node is readonly.

Since:

DOM Level 3