Node

public interface Node

org.w3c.dom.Node

Known indirect subclasses

Attr, CDATASection, CharacterData, Comment, Document, DocumentFragment, DocumentType, Element, Entity, EntityReference, Notation, ProcessingInstruction, Text

Attr	The `Attr` interface represents an attribute in an `Element` object.
CDATASection	CDATA sections are used to escape blocks of text containing characters that would otherwise be regarded as markup.
CharacterData	The `CharacterData` interface extends Node with a set of attributes and methods for accessing character data in the DOM.
Comment	This interface inherits from `CharacterData` and represents the content of a comment, i.e., all the characters between the starting ' `<!--`' and ending '`-->`'.
Document	The `Document` interface represents the entire HTML or XML document.
DocumentFragment	`DocumentFragment` is a "lightweight" or "minimal" `Document` object.
DocumentType	Each `Document` has a `doctype` attribute whose value is either `null` or a `DocumentType` object.
Element	The `Element` interface represents an element in an HTML or XML document.
Entity	This interface represents a known entity, either parsed or unparsed, in an XML document.
EntityReference	`EntityReference` nodes may be used to represent an entity reference in the tree.
Notation	This interface represents a notation declared in the DTD.
ProcessingInstruction	The `ProcessingInstruction` interface represents a "processing instruction", used in XML as a way to keep processor-specific information in the text of the document.
Text	The `Text` interface inherits from `CharacterData` and represents the textual content (termed character data in XML) of an `Element` or `Attr`.

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`	same as `Attr.name`	same as `Attr.value`	`null`
`CDATASection`	`"#cdata-section"`	same as `CharacterData.data`, the content of the CDATA Section	`null`
`Comment`	`"#comment"`	same as `CharacterData.data`, the content of the comment	`null`
`Document`	`"#document"`	`null`	`null`
`DocumentFragment`	`"#document-fragment"`	`null`	`null`
`DocumentType`	same as `DocumentType.name`	`null`	`null`
`Element`	same as `Element.tagName`	`null`	`NamedNodeMap`
`Entity`	entity name	`null`	`null`
`EntityReference`	name of entity referenced	`null`	`null`
`Notation`	notation name	`null`	`null`
`ProcessingInstruction`	same as `ProcessingInstruction.target`	same as `ProcessingInstruction.data`	`null`
`Text`	`"#text"`	same as `CharacterData.data`, the content of the text node	`null`

Summary

Constants
`short`	`ATTRIBUTE_NODE` The node is an `Attr`.
`short`	`CDATA_SECTION_NODE` The node is a `CDATASection`.
`short`	`COMMENT_NODE` The node is a `Comment`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE` The node is a `DocumentFragment`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_NODE` The node is a `Document`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY` The node is contained by the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS` The node contains the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED` The two nodes are disconnected.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING` The node follows the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_IMPLEMENTATION_SPECIFIC` The determination of preceding versus following is implementation-specific.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING` The second node precedes the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE` The node is a `DocumentType`.
`short`	`ELEMENT_NODE` The node is an `Element`.
`short`	`ENTITY_NODE` The node is an `Entity`.
`short`	`ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE` The node is an `EntityReference`.
`short`	`NOTATION_NODE` The node is a `Notation`.
`short`	`PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE` The node is a `ProcessingInstruction`.
`short`	`TEXT_NODE` The node is a `Text` node.

Public methods
`abstract Node`	`appendChild(Node newChild)` Adds the node `newChild` to the end of the list of children of this node.
`abstract Node`	`cloneNode(boolean deep)` Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes.
`abstract short`	`compareDocumentPosition(Node other)` Compares the reference node, i.e.
`abstract NamedNodeMap`	`getAttributes()` A `NamedNodeMap` containing the attributes of this node (if it is an `Element`) or `null` otherwise.
`abstract String`	`getBaseURI()` The absolute base URI of this node or `null` if the implementation wasn't able to obtain an absolute URI.
`abstract NodeList`	`getChildNodes()` A `NodeList` that contains all children of this node.
`abstract Object`	`getFeature(String feature, String version)` This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in .
`abstract Node`	`getFirstChild()` The first child of this node.
`abstract Node`	`getLastChild()` The last child of this node.
`abstract String`	`getLocalName()` Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
`abstract String`	`getNamespaceURI()` The namespace URI of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified (see ).
`abstract Node`	`getNextSibling()` The node immediately following this node.
`abstract String`	`getNodeName()` The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract short`	`getNodeType()` A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.
`abstract String`	`getNodeValue()` The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract Document`	`getOwnerDocument()` The `Document` object associated with this node.
`abstract Node`	`getParentNode()` The parent of this node.
`abstract String`	`getPrefix()` The namespace prefix of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified.
`abstract Node`	`getPreviousSibling()` The node immediately preceding this node.
`abstract String`	`getTextContent()` This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
`abstract Object`	`getUserData(String key)` Retrieves the object associated to a key on a this node.
`abstract boolean`	`hasAttributes()` Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes.
`abstract boolean`	`hasChildNodes()` Returns whether this node has any children.
`abstract Node`	`insertBefore(Node newChild, Node refChild)` Inserts the node `newChild` before the existing child node `refChild`.
`abstract boolean`	`isDefaultNamespace(String namespaceURI)` This method checks if the specified `namespaceURI` is the default namespace or not.
`abstract boolean`	`isEqualNode(Node arg)` Tests whether two nodes are equal.
`abstract boolean`	`isSameNode(Node other)` Returns whether this node is the same node as the given one.
`abstract boolean`	`isSupported(String feature, String version)` Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node, as specified in .
`abstract String`	`lookupNamespaceURI(String prefix)` Look up the namespace URI associated to the given prefix, starting from this node.
`abstract String`	`lookupPrefix(String namespaceURI)` Look up the prefix associated to the given namespace URI, starting from this node.
`abstract 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.
`abstract Node`	`removeChild(Node oldChild)` Removes the child node indicated by `oldChild` from the list of children, and returns it.
`abstract Node`	`replaceChild(Node newChild, Node oldChild)` Replaces the child node `oldChild` with `newChild` in the list of children, and returns the `oldChild` node.
`abstract void`	`setNodeValue(String nodeValue)` The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract void`	`setPrefix(String prefix)` The namespace prefix of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified.
`abstract void`	`setTextContent(String textContent)` This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
`abstract Object`	`setUserData(String key, Object data, UserDataHandler handler)` Associate an object to a key on this node.

Parameters
`feature`	`String`: The name of the feature requested. Note that any plus sign "+" prepended to the name of the feature will be ignored since it is not significant in the context of this method.
`version`	`String`: This is the version number of the feature to test.

Node type	Content
ELEMENT_NODE, ATTRIBUTE_NODE, ENTITY_NODE, ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE, DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE	concatenation of the `textContent` attribute value of every child node, excluding COMMENT_NODE and PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE nodes. This is the empty string if the node has no children.
TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE, PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE	`nodeValue`
DOCUMENT_NODE, DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE, NOTATION_NODE	null

Parameters
`newChild`	`Node`: The node to insert.
`refChild`	`Node`: The reference node, i.e., the node before which the new node must be inserted.

Parameters
`feature`	`String`: The name of the feature to test.
`version`	`String`: This is the version number of the feature to test.

Parameters
`newChild`	`Node`: The new node to put in the child list.
`oldChild`	`Node`: The node being replaced in the list.

Parameters
`key`	`String`: The key to associate the object to.
`data`	`Object`: The object to associate to the given key, or `null` to remove any existing association to that key.
`handler`	`UserDataHandler`: The handler to associate to that key, or `null`.

Node

Summary

Constants

Public methods

Constants

ATTRIBUTE_NODE

CDATA_SECTION_NODE

COMMENT_NODE

DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

DOCUMENT_NODE

DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY

DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS

DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED

DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING

DOCUMENT_POSITION_IMPLEMENTATION_SPECIFIC

DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING

DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

ELEMENT_NODE

ENTITY_NODE

ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

NOTATION_NODE

PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

TEXT_NODE

Public methods

appendChild

cloneNode

compareDocumentPosition

getAttributes

getBaseURI

getChildNodes

getFeature

getFirstChild

getLastChild

getLocalName

getNamespaceURI

getNextSibling

getNodeName

getNodeType

getNodeValue

getOwnerDocument

getParentNode

getPrefix

getPreviousSibling

getTextContent

getUserData

hasAttributes

hasChildNodes

insertBefore

isDefaultNamespace

isEqualNode

isSameNode

isSupported

lookupNamespaceURI

lookupPrefix

normalize

removeChild

replaceChild

setNodeValue

setPrefix

setTextContent

setUserData