Node
is an interface from which a number of DOM API object types inherit; it allows these various types to be treated similarly, for example inheriting the same set of methods, or being tested in the same way.
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.
Inherits properties from its parents EventTarget
.[1]
Node.baseURI
Read only
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
nsIURI
object representing the base URI for the element.Node.childNodes
Read only
NodeList
containing all the children of this node. NodeList
being live means that if the children of the Node
change, the NodeList
object is automatically updated.Node.firstChild
Read only
Node
representing the first direct child node of the node, or null
if the node has no child.Node.lastChild
Read only
Node
representing the last direct child node of the node, or null
if the node has no child.Node.nextSibling
Read only
Node
representing the next node in the tree, or null
if there isn't such node.Node.nodeName
Read only
DOMString
containing the name of the Node
. The structure of the name will differ with the node type. E.g. An HTMLElement
will contain the name of the corresponding tag, like 'audio'
for an HTMLAudioElement
, a Text
node will have the '#text'
string, or a Document
node will have the '#document'
string.Node.nodePrincipal
nsIPrincipal
representing the node principal.Node.nodeType
Read only
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
Node.ownerDocument
Read only
Document
that this node belongs to. If the node is itself a document, returns null
.Node.parentNode
Read only
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 returns null
.Node.parentElement
Read only
Element
that is the parent of this node. If the node has no parent, or if that parent is not an Element
, this property returns null
.Node.previousSibling
Read only
Node
representing the previous node in the tree, or null
if there isn't such node.Node.textContent
Node.rootNode
Read only
Node
object representing the topmost node in the tree, or the current node if it's the topmost node in the tree. This has been replaced by Node.getRootNode()
.Node.localName
Read only
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
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 http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/
namespace in both HTML and XML trees.
Node.prefix
Read only
DOMString
representing the namespace prefix of the node, or null
if no prefix is specified.Inherits methods from its parent, EventTarget
.[1]
Node.appendChild()
Node.cloneNode()
Node
, and optionally, all of its contents. By default, it clones the content of the node.Node.compareDocumentPosition()
Node.contains()
Boolean
value indicating whether a node is a descendant of a given node or not.Node.getRootNode()
Node.hasChildNodes()
Boolean
indicating if the element has any child nodes, or not.Node.insertBefore()
Node
before the reference node as a child of the current node.Node.isDefaultNamespace()
Boolean
with a value of true
if the namespace is the default namespace on the given node or false
if not.Node.isEqualNode()
Boolean
which indicates whether or not two nodes are of the same type and all their defining data points match.Node.isSameNode()
Boolean
value indicating whether or not the two nodes are the same (that is, they reference the same object).Node.lookupPrefix()
DOMString
containing the prefix for a given namespace URI, if present, and null
if not. When multiple prefixes are possible, the result is implementation-dependent.Node.lookupNamespaceURI()
null
if not). Supplying null
for the prefix will return the default namespace.Node.normalize()
Node.removeChild()
Node.replaceChild()
Node
of the current one with the second one given in parameter.Node.getFeature()
Node.getUserData()
DOMUserData
from the node.Node.hasAttributes()
Boolean
indicating if the element has any attributes, or not.Node.isSupported()
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.setUserData()
DOMUserData
to the node.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); }
DOMComb(parentNode, callbackFunction);
Recursively cycle all child nodes of parentNode
and parentNode
itself and execute the callbackFunction
upon them as this
objects.
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); };
Element.prototype.removeAll = function () { while (this.firstChild) { this.removeChild(this.firstChild); } return this; };
/* ... an alternative to document.body.innerHTML = "" ... */ document.body.removeAll();
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. | Obsolete | 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. | Obsolete | 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. | Obsolete | Initial definition |
Feature | Chrome | Edge | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes)[1] | (Yes) | 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() | (Yes) | ? | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) Removed in 10 (10) Returned in 48 (48) | ? | No support | No support |
isSupported()
| No support | ? | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) | ? | ? | ? |
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] | ? | ? | ? |
getRootNode() , and rootNode deprecated | 54.0 | ? | 53 (53) | ? | 41 | ? |
Feature | Android | Android Webview | Edge | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile | Chrome for Android |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | ? | (Yes)[1] | (Yes) | 1.0 (1.0) | (Yes) | (Yes)[1] | (Yes)[1] | (Yes)[1] |
getFeature()
| No support | No support | ? | 1.0 (1.0) No support7.0 (7.0) | ? | No support | No support | No support |
getUserData() , setUserData() and hasAttributes()
| No support | No support | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No support |
isSameNode() | ? | (Yes) | ? | ? | ? | ? | (Yes) | |
isSupported()
| ? | No support | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No support |
attributes | ? | No support | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No support |
rootNode() | ? | No support | ? | 48.0 (48) | ? | ? | ? | No support |
namespaceURI , localName , prefix
| ? | No support | ? |
(Yes) No support48.0[3] | ? | ? | ? | No support |
getRootNode() , and rootNode deprecated | No support | 54.0 | ? | 53.0 (53) | ? | 41 | ? | 54.0 |
[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.
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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Node