Node
A Node
is an interface from which a number of DOM types inherit, and allows these various types to be treated (or tested) similarly.
The following interfaces all inherit from Node
its methods and properties: Document
, Element
, CharacterData
(which Text
, Comment
, and CDATASection
inherit), ProcessingInstruction
, DocumentFragment
, DocumentType
, Notation
, Entity
, EntityReference
These interfaces may return null in particular cases where the methods and properties are not relevant. They may throw an exception - for example when adding children to a node type for which no children can exist.
Properties
Inherits properties from its parents EventTarget
.[1]
Node.baseURI
Read only- Returns a
DOMString
representing the base URL. The concept of base URL changes from one language to another; in HTML, it corresponds to the protocol, the domain name and the directory structure, that is all until the last'/'
. Node.baseURIObject
- (Not available to web content.) The read-only
nsIURI
object representing the base URI for the element. Node.childNodes
Read only- Returns a live
NodeList
containing all the children of this node.NodeList
being live means that if the children of theNode
change, theNodeList
object is automatically updated. Node.firstChild
Read only- Returns a
Node
representing the first direct child node of the node, ornull
if the node has no child. Node.lastChild
Read only- Returns a
Node
representing the last direct child node of the node, ornull
if the node has no child. Node.localName
Read only- Returns a
DOMString
representing the local part of the qualified name of an element.Note: In Firefox 3.5 and earlier, the property upper-cases the local name for HTML elements (but not XHTML elements). In later versions, this does not happen, so the property is in lower case for both HTML and XHTML.
Node.namespaceURI
Read only- The namespace URI of this node, or
null
if it is no namespace.Note: In Firefox 3.5 and earlier, HTML elements are in no namespace. In later versions, HTML elements are in the
https://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/
namespace in both HTML and XML trees. Node.nextSibling
Read only- Returns a
Node
representing the next node in the tree, ornull
if there isn't such node. Node.nodeName
Read only- Returns a
DOMString
containing the name of theNode
. The structure of the name will differ with the name type. E.g. AnHTMLElement
will contain the name of the corresponding tag, like'audio'
for anHTMLAudioElement
, aText
node will have the'#text'
string, or aDocument
node will have the'#document'
string. Node.nodePrincipal
- A
nsIPrincipal
representing the node principal. Node.nodeType
Read only- Returns an
unsigned short
representing the type of the node. Possible values are:Name Value ELEMENT_NODE
1
ATTRIBUTE_NODE
2
TEXT_NODE
3
CDATA_SECTION_NODE
4
ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
5
ENTITY_NODE
6
PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
7
COMMENT_NODE
8
DOCUMENT_NODE
9
DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
10
DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
11
NOTATION_NODE
12
Node.nodeValue
- Returns / Sets the value of the current node
Node.ownerDocument
Read only- Returns the
Document
that this node belongs to. If no document is associated with it, returnsnull
. Node.parentNode
Read only- Returns a
Node
that is the parent of this node. If there is no such node, like if this node is the top of the tree or if doesn't participate in a tree, this property returnsnull
. Node.parentElement
Read only- Returns an
Element
that is the parent of this node. If the node has no parent, or if that parent is not anElement
, this property returnsnull
. Node.prefix
Read only- Is a
DOMString
representing the namespace prefix of the node, ornull
if no prefix is specified. Node.previousSibling
Read only- Returns a
Node
representing the previous node in the tree, ornull
if there isn't such node. Node.rootNode
Read only- Returns a
Node
object representing the topmost node in the tree, or the current node if it's the topmost node in the tree. This is found by walking backward alongNode.parentNode
until the top is reached. Node.textContent
- Returns / Sets the textual content of an element and all its descendants.
Methods
Inherits methods from its parent, EventTarget
.[1]
Node.appendChild()
-
Adds the specified childNode argument as the last child to the current node.
If the argument referenced an existing node on the DOM gree, the node will be detached from its current position and attached at the new position. Node.cloneNode()
- Clone a
Node
, and optionally, all of its contents. By default, it clones the content of the node. Node.compareDocumentPosition()
Node.contains()
Node.getFeature()
Node.getUserData()
- Allows a user to get some
DOMUserData
from the node. Node.hasAttributes()
- Returns a
Boolean
indicating if the element has any attributes, or not. Node.hasChildNodes()
- Returns a
Boolean
indicating if the element has any child nodes, or not. Node.insertBefore()
- Inserts the first
Node
given in a parameter immediately before the second, child of this element,Node
. Node.isDefaultNamespace()
Node.isEqualNode()
- Returns a
Boolean
which indicates whether or not two nodes are of the same type and all their defining data points match. Node.isSameNode()
- Returns a
Boolean
value indicating whether or not the two nodes are the same (that is, they reference the same object). Node.isSupported()
- Returns a
Boolean
flag containing the result of a test whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and this feature is supported by the specific node. Node.lookupPrefix()
Node.lookupNamespaceURI()
Node.normalize()
- Clean up all the text nodes under this element (merge adjacent, remove empty).
Node.removeChild()
- Removes a child node from the current element, which must be a child of the current node.
Node.replaceChild()
- Replaces one child
Node
of the current one with the second one given in parameter. Node.setUserData()
- Allows a user to attach, or remove,
DOMUserData
to the node.
Examples
Browse all child nodes
The following function recursively cycles all child nodes of a node and executes a callback function upon them (and upon the parent node itself).
function DOMComb (oParent, oCallback) { if (oParent.hasChildNodes()) { for (var oNode = oParent.firstChild; oNode; oNode = oNode.nextSibling) { DOMComb(oNode, oCallback); } } oCallback.call(oParent); }
Syntax
DOMComb(parentNode, callbackFunction);
Description
Recursively cycle all child nodes of parentNode
and parentNode
itself and execute the callbackFunction
upon them as this
objects.
Parameters
Sample usage
The following example send to the console.log
the text content of the body:
function printContent () { if (this.nodeValue) { console.log(this.nodeValue); } } onload = function () { DOMComb(document.body, printContent); };
Remove all children nested within a node
Element.prototype.removeAll = function () { while (this.firstChild) { this.removeChild(this.firstChild); } return this; };
Sample usage
/* ... an alternative to document.body.innerHTML = "" ... */ document.body.removeAll();
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'Node' in that specification. |
Living Standard | Removed the following properties: attributes , namespaceURI , prefix , and localName .Removed the following methods: isSupported() , hasAttributes() , getFeature() , setUserData() , and getUserData() . |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Node' in that specification. |
Recommendation | The methods insertBefore() , replaceChild() , removeChild() , and appendChild() returns one more kind of error (NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR ) if called on a Document .The normalize() method has been modified so that Text node can also be normalized if the proper DOMConfiguration flag is set.Added the following methods: compareDocumentPosition() , isSameNode() , lookupPrefix() , isDefaultNamespace() , lookupNamespaceURI() , isEqualNode() , getFeature() , setUserData() , and getUserData(). Added the following properties: baseURI and textContent . |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Node' in that specification. |
Recommendation | The ownerDocument property was slightly modified so that DocumentFragment also returns null .Added the following properties: namespaceURI , prefix , and localName .Added the following methods: normalize() , isSupported() and hasAttributes() . |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Node' in that specification. |
Recommendation | Initial definition |
Browser compatibility
Feature | Chrome | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes)[1] | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) | (Yes) | (Yes)[1] | (Yes)[1] |
getFeature() |
No support | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) No support7.0 (7.0) |
? | No support | No support |
getUserData() , setUserData() and hasAttributes() |
No support | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) No support22.0 (22.0) |
? | No support | No support |
isSameNode() |
No support | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) Removed in 10 (10) Returned in 48 (48) |
? | No support | No support |
isSupported() |
? | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) No support22.0 (22.0) |
? | ? | ? |
attributes |
No support | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) No support22.0 (22.0)[2] |
No support | No support | No support |
rootNode() |
? | CompatGeckoDesktop(48)}} | ? | ? | ? |
namespaceURI , localName , prefix |
(Yes) No support46.0[3] |
(Yes) No support48.0[3] |
? | ? | ? |
Feature | Android | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes)[1] | 1.0 (1.0) | (Yes) | (Yes)[1] | (Yes)[1] |
getFeature() |
No support | 1.0 (1.0) No support7.0 (7.0) |
? | No support | No support |
getUserData() , setUserData() and hasAttributes() |
? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
isSameNode() |
? | ? | ? | ? | |
isSupported() |
? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
attributes |
? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
rootNode() |
? | 48.0 (48) | ? | ? | ? |
namespaceURI , localName , prefix |
? | (Yes) No support48.0[3] |
? | ? | ? |
[1] WebKit and old versions of Blink incorrectly do not make Node
inherit from EventTarget
.
[2] In Gecko 22.0 (Firefox 22.0 / Thunderbird 22.0 / SeaMonkey 2.19) the attributes
property was moved to Element
.
[3] The properties were moved to the Element
and Attr
APIs according to the DOM4 standard.
License
© 2016 Mozilla Contributors
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-us/docs/web/api/node