Module java.xml
Package org.w3c.dom

Interface Node

All Known Subinterfaces:
Attr, CDATASection, CharacterData, Comment, Document, DocumentFragment, DocumentType, Element, Entity, EntityReference, Notation, ProcessingInstruction, Text
All Known Implementing Classes:
IIOMetadataNode

public interface Node
The Node interface is the primary datatype for the entire Document Object Model. It represents a single node in the document tree. While all objects implementing the Node interface expose methods for dealing with children, not all objects implementing the Node interface may have children. For example, Text nodes may not have children, and adding children to such nodes results in a DOMException being raised.

The attributes nodeName, nodeValue and attributes are included as a mechanism to get at node information without casting down to the specific derived interface. In cases where there is no obvious mapping of these attributes for a specific nodeType (e.g., nodeValue for an Element or attributes for a Comment ), this returns null. Note that the specialized interfaces may contain additional and more convenient mechanisms to get and set the relevant information.

The values of nodeName, nodeValue, and attributes vary according to the node type as follows:

Interface table
Interface nodeName nodeValue attributes
Attr same as Attr.name same as Attr.value null
CDATASection "#cdata-section" same as CharacterData.data, the content of the CDATA Section null
Comment "#comment" same as CharacterData.data, the content of the comment null
Document "#document" null null
DocumentFragment "#document-fragment" null null
DocumentType same as DocumentType.name null null
Element same as Element.tagName null NamedNodeMap
Entity entity name null null
EntityReference name of entity referenced null null
Notation notation name null null
ProcessingInstruction same as ProcessingInstruction.target same as ProcessingInstruction.data null
Text "#text" same as CharacterData.data, the content of the text node null

See also the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification.

Since:
1.4, DOM Level 2