Microsoft DOM Objects Reference

removeChild()

Syntax

Set objXMLDOMNode = objXMLDOMNode.removeChild(oldChild)

Remark

The parameter oldChild is the Node to be removed from the list of children for this Node. If the removal is successful, this method returns the removed child Node (objXMLDOMNode).

Although this method has been added to most of the DOMDocument interfaces, it cannot actually be used with all of them, as they may not have child Nodes to remove.

This method returns the Node that has just been removed (see the nodeType property for more information on Node types). It works successfully with the following Node types:

¬ Document

¬ Element

¬ Attribute

¬ Document Fragment

¬ Node (if its type is one of the above)

The following types of Nodes cannot have childNodes; therefore, this method cannot be used successfully for the following nodeTypes:

¬ Comment

¬ Text

¬ Processing Instruction

¬ CDATA section

¬ Notation

Although the following can have children, they are childNodes that cannot be removed, as they may be part of a DTD:

¬ Document type

¬ Entity

¬ Entity reference

Example

The following example removes the firstChild of the child Node collection of the documentElement property.

Dim objDOMDocument As DOMDocument

Dim objXMLDOMElement As IXMLDOMElement

Dim objRemovedElement As IXMLDOMElement

Set objDOMDocument = New DOMDocument

objDOMDocument.async = False

objDOMDocument.Load "http://localhost/xmlcode/people2.dtd"

Set objXMLDOMElement = objDOMDocument.documentElement.firstChild

Set objRemovedElement = objDOMDocument.documentElement.removeChild(objXMLDOMElement)

If objRemovedElement Is Nothing Then

' this removal was unsuccessful, show warning

End If

¬ The object objRemovedElement returns the removed Node if the removeChild
execution was successful.

¬ If the removal was unsuccessful, then it returns a warning.

This manuscript is an abridged version of a chapter from the Manning Publications book XML Programming with VB and ASP. This chapter looks at the Microsoft DOM objects. NOTE: Most images have been removed to increase speed and many of the code comments have also been removed for presentation. Please purchase the book to enjoy the full experience of all the chapters with images and code comments!