XML::DOM::Attr

XML::DOM::Attr(3)     User Contributed Perl Documentation    XML::DOM::Attr(3)



NAME
       XML::DOM::Attr - An XML attribute in XML::DOM

DESCRIPTION
       XML::DOM::Attr extends XML::DOM::Node.

       The Attr nodes built by the XML::DOM::Parser always have one child node
       which is a Text node containing the expanded string value (i.e. Enti-
       tyReferences are always expanded.) EntityReferences may be added when
       modifying or creating a new Document.

       The Attr interface represents an attribute in an Element object.  Typi-
       cally the allowable values for the attribute are defined in a document
       type definition.

       Attr objects inherit the Node interface, but since they are not actu-
       ally child nodes of the element they describe, the DOM does not con-
       sider them part of the document tree. Thus, the Node attributes par-
       entNode, previousSibling, and nextSibling have a undef value for Attr
       objects. The DOM takes the view that attributes are properties of ele-
       ments rather than having a separate identity from the elements they are
       associated with; this should make it more efficient to implement such
       features as default attributes associated with all elements of a given
       type. Furthermore, Attr nodes may not be immediate children of a Docu-
       mentFragment. However, they can be associated with Element nodes con-
       tained within a DocumentFragment. In short, users and implementors of
       the DOM need to be aware that Attr nodes have some things in common
       with other objects inheriting the Node interface, but they also are
       quite distinct.

       The attribute's effective value is determined as follows: if this
       attribute has been explicitly assigned any value, that value is the
       attribute's effective value; otherwise, if there is a declaration for
       this attribute, and that declaration includes a default value, then
       that default value is the attribute's effective value; otherwise, the
       attribute does not exist on this element in the structure model until
       it has been explicitly added. Note that the nodeValue attribute on the
       Attr instance can also be used to retrieve the string version of the
       attribute's value(s).

       In XML, where the value of an attribute can contain entity references,
       the child nodes of the Attr node provide a representation in which
       entity references are not expanded. These child nodes may be either
       Text or EntityReference nodes. Because the attribute type may be
       unknown, there are no tokenized attribute values.

       METHODS


       getValue
           On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string.
           Character and general entity references are replaced with their
           values.

       setValue (str)
           DOM Spec: On setting, this creates a Text node with the unparsed
           contents of the string.

       getName
           Returns the name of this attribute.



perl v5.8.6                       2002-02-08                 XML::DOM::Attr(3)