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XML DOM Node Types


The DOM presents a document as a hierarchy of node objects.


Try it Yourself - Examples

The examples below use the XML file books.xml.

Display nodeName and nodeType of all elements

Display nodeName and nodeValue of all elements

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Header


Node Types

The following table lists the different W3C node types, and which node types they may have as children:

Node Type Description Children
Document Represents the entire document (the root-node of the DOM tree) Element (max. one), ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
DocumentFragment Represents a "lightweight" Document object, which can hold a portion of a document Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
DocumentType Provides an interface to the entities defined for the document None
ProcessingInstruction Represents a processing instruction None
EntityReference Represents an entity reference Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Element Represents an element Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
Attr Represents an attribute Text, EntityReference
Text Represents textual content in an element or attribute None
CDATASection Represents a CDATA section in a document (text that will NOT be parsed by a parser) None
Comment Represents a comment None
Entity Represents an entity Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Notation Represents a notation declared in the DTD None

Node Types - Return Values

The following table lists what the nodeName and the nodeValue properties will return for each node type:

Node Type nodeName returns nodeValue returns
Document #document null
DocumentFragment #document fragment null
DocumentType doctype name null
EntityReference entity reference name null
Element element name null
Attr attribute name attribute value
ProcessingInstruction target content of node
Comment #comment comment text
Text #text content of node
CDATASection #cdata-section content of node
Entity entity name null
Notation notation name null

NodeTypes - Named Constants

NodeType Named Constant
1 ELEMENT_NODE
2 ATTRIBUTE_NODE
3 TEXT_NODE
4 CDATA_SECTION_NODE
5 ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
6 ENTITY_NODE
7 PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
8 COMMENT_NODE
9 DOCUMENT_NODE
10 DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
11 DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
12 NOTATION_NODE