XML::DOM::Node
XML::DOM::Node(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation XML::DOM::Node(3)
NAME
XML::DOM::Node - Super class of all nodes in XML::DOM
DESCRIPTION
XML::DOM::Node is the super class of all nodes in an XML::DOM document.
This means that all nodes that subclass XML::DOM::Node also inherit all
the methods that XML::DOM::Node implements.
GLOBAL VARIABLES
@NodeNames
The variable @XML::DOM::Node::NodeNames maps the node type con-
stants to strings. It is used by XML::DOM::Node::getNodeTypeName.
METHODS
getNodeType
Return an integer indicating the node type. See XML::DOM constants.
getNodeName
Return a property or a hardcoded string, depending on the node
type. Here are the corresponding functions or values:
Attr getName
AttDef getName
AttlistDecl getName
CDATASection "#cdata-section"
Comment "#comment"
Document "#document"
DocumentType getNodeName
DocumentFragment "#document-fragment"
Element getTagName
ElementDecl getName
EntityReference getEntityName
Entity getNotationName
Notation getName
ProcessingInstruction getTarget
Text "#text"
XMLDecl "#xml-declaration"
Not In DOM Spec: AttDef, AttlistDecl, ElementDecl and XMLDecl were
added for completeness.
getNodeValue and setNodeValue (value)
Returns a string or undef, depending on the node type. This method
is provided for completeness. In other languages it saves the pro-
grammer an upcast. The value is either available thru some other
method defined in the subclass, or else undef is returned. Here are
the corresponding methods: Attr::getValue, Text::getData, CDATASec-
tion::getData, Comment::getData, ProcessingInstruction::getData.
getParentNode and setParentNode (parentNode)
The parent of this node. All nodes, except Document, DocumentFrag-
ment, and Attr may have a parent. However, if a node has just been
created and not yet added to the tree, or if it has been removed
from the tree, this is undef.
getChildNodes
A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no
children, this is a NodeList containing no nodes. The content of
the returned NodeList is "live" in the sense that, for instance,
changes to the children of the node object that it was created from
are immediately reflected in the nodes returned by the NodeList
accessors; it is not a static snapshot of the content of the node.
This is true for every NodeList, including the ones returned by the
getElementsByTagName method.
NOTE: this implementation does not return a "live" NodeList for
getElementsByTagName. See CAVEATS.
When this method is called in a list context, it returns a regular
perl list containing the child nodes. Note that this list is not
"live". E.g.
@list = $node->getChildNodes; # returns a perl list
$nodelist = $node->getChildNodes; # returns a NodeList (object reference)
for my $kid ($node->getChildNodes) # iterate over the children of $node
getFirstChild
The first child of this node. If there is no such node, this
returns undef.
getLastChild
The last child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns
undef.
getPreviousSibling
The node immediately preceding this node. If there is no such node,
this returns undef.
getNextSibling
The node immediately following this node. If there is no such node,
this returns undef.
getAttributes
A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes (Attr nodes) of this node
(if it is an Element) or undef otherwise. Note that adding/remov-
ing attributes from the returned object, also adds/removes
attributes from the Element node that the NamedNodeMap came from.
getOwnerDocument
The Document object associated with this node. This is also the
Document object used to create new nodes. When this node is a Docu-
ment this is undef.
insertBefore (newChild, refChild)
Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild.
If refChild is undef, insert newChild at the end of the list of
children.
If newChild is a DocumentFragment object, all of its children are
inserted, in the same order, before refChild. If the newChild is
already in the tree, it is first removed.
Return Value: The node being inserted.
DOMExceptions:
* HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children
of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to insert is
one of this node's ancestors.
* WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
Raised if newChild was created from a different document than
the one that created this node.
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
Raised if this node is readonly.
* NOT_FOUND_ERR
Raised if refChild is not a child of this node.
replaceChild (newChild, oldChild)
Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of chil-
dren, and returns the oldChild node. If the newChild is already in
the tree, it is first removed.
Return Value: The node replaced.
DOMExceptions:
* HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children
of the type of the newChild node, or it the node to put in is
one of this node's ancestors.
* WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
Raised if newChild was created from a different document than
the one that created this node.
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
Raised if this node is readonly.
* NOT_FOUND_ERR
Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.
removeChild (oldChild)
Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of chil-
dren, and returns it.
Return Value: The node removed.
DOMExceptions:
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
Raised if this node is readonly.
* NOT_FOUND_ERR
Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.
appendChild (newChild)
Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this
node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.
If it is a DocumentFragment object, the entire contents of the doc-
ument fragment are moved into the child list of this node
Return Value: The node added.
DOMExceptions:
* HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children
of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to append is
one of this node's ancestors.
* WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
Raised if newChild was created from a different document than
the one that created this node.
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
Raised if this node is readonly.
hasChildNodes
This is a convenience method to allow easy determination of whether
a node has any children.
Return Value: 1 if the node has any children, 0 otherwise.
cloneNode (deep)
Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy
constructor for nodes. The duplicate node has no parent (parentNode
returns undef.).
Cloning an Element copies all attributes and their values, includ-
ing those generated by the XML processor to represent defaulted
attributes, but this method does not copy any text it contains
unless it is a deep clone, since the text is contained in a child
Text node. Cloning any other type of node simply returns a copy of
this node.
Parameters:
deep If true, recursively clone the subtree under the specified
node. If false, clone only the node itself (and its attributes, if
it is an Element).
Return Value: The duplicate node.
normalize
Puts all Text nodes in the full depth of the sub-tree underneath
this Element into a "normal" form where only markup (e.g., tags,
comments, processing instructions, CDATA sections, and entity ref-
erences) separates Text nodes, i.e., there are no adjacent Text
nodes. This can be used to ensure that the DOM view of a document
is the same as if it were saved and re-loaded, and is useful when
operations (such as XPointer lookups) that depend on a particular
document tree structure are to be used.
Not In DOM Spec: In the DOM Spec this method is defined in the Ele-
ment and Document class interfaces only, but it doesn't hurt to
have it here...
getElementsByTagName (name [, recurse])
Returns a NodeList of all descendant elements with a given tag
name, in the order in which they would be encountered in a preorder
traversal of the Element tree.
Parameters:
name The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*"
matches all tags.
recurse Whether it should return only direct child nodes (0) or
any descendant that matches the tag name (1). This argument is
optional and defaults to 1. It is not part of the DOM spec.
Return Value: A list of matching Element nodes.
NOTE: this implementation does not return a "live" NodeList for
getElementsByTagName. See CAVEATS.
When this method is called in a list context, it returns a regular
perl list containing the result nodes. E.g.
@list = $node->getElementsByTagName("tag"); # returns a perl list
$nodelist = $node->getElementsByTagName("tag"); # returns a NodeList (object ref.)
for my $elem ($node->getElementsByTagName("tag")) # iterate over the result nodes
Additional methods not in the DOM Spec
getNodeTypeName
Return the string describing the node type. E.g. returns "ELE-
MENT_NODE" if getNodeType returns ELEMENT_NODE. It uses
@XML::DOM::Node::NodeNames.
toString
Returns the entire subtree as a string.
printToFile (filename)
Prints the entire subtree to the file with the specified filename.
Croaks: if the file could not be opened for writing.
printToFileHandle (handle)
Prints the entire subtree to the file handle. E.g. to print to
STDOUT:
$node->printToFileHandle (\*STDOUT);
print (obj)
Prints the entire subtree using the object's print method. E.g to
print to a FileHandle object:
$f = new FileHandle ("file.out", "w");
$node->print ($f);
getChildIndex (child)
Returns the index of the child node in the list returned by
getChildNodes.
Return Value: the index or -1 if the node is not found.
getChildAtIndex (index)
Returns the child node at the specifed index or undef.
addText (text)
Appends the specified string to the last child if it is a Text
node, or else appends a new Text node (with the specified text.)
Return Value: the last child if it was a Text node or else the new
Text node.
dispose
Removes all circular references in this node and its descendants so
the objects can be claimed for garbage collection. The objects
should not be used afterwards.
setOwnerDocument (doc)
Sets the ownerDocument property of this node and all its children
(and attributes etc.) to the specified document. This allows the
user to cut and paste document subtrees between different
XML::DOM::Documents. The node should be removed from the original
document first, before calling setOwnerDocument.
This method does nothing when called on a Document node.
isAncestor (parent)
Returns 1 if parent is an ancestor of this node or if it is this
node itself.
expandEntityRefs (str)
Expands all the entity references in the string and returns the
result. The entity references can be character references (e.g.
"{" or "ῂ"), default entity references (""",
">", "<", "'" and "&") or entity references defined
in Entity objects as part of the DocumentType of the owning Docu-
ment. Character references are expanded into UTF-8. Parameter
entity references (e.g. %ent;) are not expanded.
to_sax ( %HANDLERS )
E.g.
$node->to_sax (DocumentHandler => $my_handler,
Handler => $handler2 );
%HANDLERS may contain the following handlers:
* DocumentHandler
* DTDHandler
* EntityResolver
* Handler
Default handler when one of the above is not specified
Each XML::DOM::Node generates the appropriate SAX callbacks (for
the appropriate SAX handler.) Different SAX handlers can be plugged
in to accomplish different things, e.g. XML::Checker would check
the node (currently only Document and Element nodes are supported),
XML::Handler::BuildDOM would create a new DOM subtree (thereby, in
essence, copying the Node) and in the near future, XML::Writer
could print the node. All Perl SAX related work is still in flux,
so this interface may change a little.
See PerlSAX for the description of the SAX interface.
check ( [$checker] )
See descriptions for check() in XML::DOM::Document and
XML::DOM::Element.
xql ( @XQL_OPTIONS )
To use the xql method, you must first use XML::XQL and
XML::XQL::DOM. This method is basically a shortcut for:
$query = new XML::XQL::Query ( @XQL_OPTIONS );
return $query->solve ($node);
If the first parameter in @XQL_OPTIONS is the XQL expression, you
can leave off the 'Expr' keyword, so:
$node->xql ("doc//elem1[@attr]", @other_options);
is identical to:
$node->xql (Expr => "doc//elem1[@attr]", @other_options);
See XML::XQL::Query for other available XQL_OPTIONS. See XML::XQL
and XML::XQL::Tutorial for more info.
isHidden ()
Whether the node is hidden. See Hidden Nodes for details.
perl v5.8.6 2002-02-08 XML::DOM::Node(3)
