Ubuntu Manpage: XML::DOM::Node - Super class of all nodes in XML::DOM

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 constants 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 programmer 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,
CDATASection::getData, Comment::getData, ProcessingInstruction::getData.

getParentNode and setParentNode (parentNode)
The parent of this node. All nodes, except Document, DocumentFragment, 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/removing 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 Document 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 children, 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 children, 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 document 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, including 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 references) 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 Element 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 "ELEMENT_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 specified 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. "&#123;" or "&#x1fc2"), default entity
references ("&quot;", "&gt;", "&lt;", "&apos;" and "&amp;") or entity references
defined in Entity objects as part of the DocumentType of the owning Document.
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.