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XML DOM

DOM stands for Document Object Model and XML DOM defines a standard way to access and manipulate XML documents.

What is the DOM?​

According to W3C documentation:

The W3C Document Object Model (DOM) is a platform and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure, and style of a document.

So, we can say that HTML DOM and XML DOM are similar. In facts, both defines a standard way to access and manipulate documents through a tree structure.

Example of HTML DOM​

All HTML elements can be accessed through the HTML DOM.

For example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <body>
        <h1 id="changeme">a H1 Heading</h1>
        <button type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('changeme').innerHTML='Hello World!'">Click!
        </button>
    </body>
</html>
note

HTML DOM manipulation is made using JavaScript.

Example of XML DOM​

All XML elements can be accessed through the XML DOM.

<?xml version="1.0"  encoding="UTF-8"?>
<people>
    <book category="children">
        <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
        <author>J K. Rowling</author>
        <year>2005</year>
        <price>29.99</price>
    </book>
</people>

This code retrieves the text value of the first <author> element in an XML document:

txt = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("author")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
note

You can learn more about XML DOM in our XML DOM Tutorial

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