XML DOM Reference

Play the DOM game

Learn by playing the "Understanding the XML DOM" game.  Read about the XML DOM and then answer the questions.  See if you can get a 100% score and if not, play it again.

Microsoft has shipped some very useful objects with IE that can be used from any programming language that can make use of COM objects. In this part of the book, we will focus on the XML DOM objects using VB or VBScript.

To better understand code or descriptions of the DOMDocument, try to think of an XML document as a tree. Another useful analogy is to think of parents and their children.

To better understand code or descriptions about the DOM, try to think of an XML document as a tree. Another useful analogy is to think of parents and their children. We start with the actual root of the document, then it meanders down to each processing instruction, the document root element, attributes, etc. These objects in the DOM are known by there own type (e.g., Element, Attribute, etc.), but each type is generally called a Node. The DOM gives us collections objects as well, known as NodeLists when a parent has many children that need to be grouped. Figure  describes how the tree structure is implemented:

This chapter, while comprehensive, should not be used as a complete reference.

The XML DOM Object implements the XML DOM interfaces. These interfaces make reusability throughout the DOM practical. Because these two objects share the same interfaces, the code becomes easier to understand and work with, which we will see in a short while.

Index by subject

CDATA section 1

- A -

abort() 1

ADO 1

appendChild 1

appendChild() 1

Asynchronously 1

attribute

Attributes 1

- C -

CDATA section 1, 2, 3

childNodes 1

comment

createAttribute() 1

createCDATASection() 1

createComment() 1

createElement() 1

createEntityReference() 1

createNode() 1

createProcessingInstruction() 1

createTextNode() 1

- D -

data 1

datatype 1, 2, 3

DOCTYPE 1, 2

Document Object Model 1

documentElement 1

DOM

Dual interfaces 1

- E -

element

Entities 1, 2, 3

entity reference

EntityReference 1

- F -

firstChild 1

- G -

getAttribute() 1

getAttributeNode() 1

getElementsByTagName() 1, 2

getNamedItem() 1

- H -

hasChildNodes() 1

- I -

IE5 1

insertBefore 1

insertBefore() 1

interfaces 1

- L -

lastChild 1

length 1

load 1

loadXML() 1

- N -

Namespaces 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

namespaceURI 1

nextNode() 1

nextSibling 1

Node type enumeration 1

nodeFromID() 1

nodeName 1

nodeType 1

nodeTypedValue 1

nodeTypeString 1

nodeValue 1

Notation 1

- O -

ondataavailable 1

ontransformnode 1

open 1

ownerDocument 1

- P -

parentNode 1

parsed 1

parseError 1

prefix 1

preserveWhiteSpace 1

previousSibling 1

Processing Instruction 1

- R -

removeAttribute() 1

removeAttributeNode() 1

removeChild() 1

removeNamedItem() 1

replaceChild 1

replaceChild() 1

reset() 1

resolveExternals 1

- S -

save() 1

Schemas 1, 2, 3

selectNodes 1

selectNodes() 1

selectSingleNode 1

selectSingleNode() 1

send() 1

setAttribute() 1

setAttributeNode() 1

setNamedItem() 1

- T -

tagName 1

text 1

transformNode() 1

transformNodeToObject() 1

- U -

url 1

- V -

validateOnParse 1

value 1

- W -

whitespace 1

- X -

XML DOM Attribute 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

XML DOM CDATASection 1, 2, 3, 4

XML DOM Document

XML DOM DocumentType 1, 2, 3

XML DOM Element 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

XML DOM Entity 1, 2, 3, 4

XML DOM NamedNodeMap 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

XML DOM Node 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

XML DOM NodeList 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

XML DOM NodeListMap 1

XML DOM ParseError 1, 2, 3

XML DOM ProcessingInstruction 1, 2

XMLHTTPRequest 1, 2, 3

XSL

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!