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XML Tutorial

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XML DOM

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XPath Tutorial

XPath Introduction XPath Nodes XPath Syntax XPath Axes XPath Operators XPath Examples

XSLT Tutorial

XSLT Introduction XSL Languages XSLT Transform XSLT <template> XSLT <value-of> XSLT <for-each> XSLT <sort> XSLT <if> XSLT <choose> XSLT Apply XSLT on the Client XSLT on the Server XSLT Edit XML XSLT Examples

XQuery Tutorial

XQuery Introduction XQuery Example XQuery FLWOR XQuery HTML XQuery Terms XQuery Syntax XQuery Add XQuery Select XQuery Functions

XML DTD

DTD Introduction DTD Building Blocks DTD Elements DTD Attributes DTD Elements vs Attr DTD Entities DTD Examples

XSD Schema

XSD Introduction XSD How To XSD <schema> XSD Elements XSD Attributes XSD Restrictions XSD Complex Elements XSD Empty XSD Elements-only XSD Text-only XSD Mixed XSD Indicators XSD <any> XSD <anyAttribute> XSD Substitution XSD Example

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References

DOM Node Types DOM Node DOM NodeList DOM NamedNodeMap DOM Document DOM Element DOM Attribute DOM Text DOM CDATA DOM Comment DOM XMLHttpRequest DOM Parser XSLT Elements XSLT/XPath Functions

XML DOM - Navigating Nodes


Nodes can be navigated using node relationships.


Navigating DOM Nodes

Accessing nodes in the node tree via the relationship between nodes, is often called "navigating nodes".

In the XML DOM, node relationships are defined as properties to the nodes:

  • parentNode
  • childNodes
  • firstChild
  • lastChild
  • nextSibling
  • previousSibling

The following image illustrates a part of the node tree and the relationship between nodes in books.xml:

Node tree

DOM - Parent Node

All nodes have exactly one parent node. The following code navigates to the parent node of <book>:

Example

function myFunction(xml) {
var xmlDoc = xml.responseXML;
    var x = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("book")[0];
    document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = x.parentNode.nodeName;
}
Try it Yourself »

Example explained:

  1. Load books.xml into xmlDoc
  2. Get the first <book> element
  3. Output the node name of the parent node of "x"


Avoid Empty Text Nodes

Some browsers might treat empty white-spaces or new lines as text nodes. This causes a problem when using the properties: firstChild, lastChild, nextSibling, previousSibling.

To avoid navigating to empty text nodes (spaces and new-line characters between element nodes), we use a function that checks the node type:

function get_nextSibling(n) {
    var y = n.nextSibling;
    while (y.nodeType != 1) {
        y = y.nextSibling;
    }
    return y;
}

The function above allows you to use get_nextSibling(node) instead of the property node.nextSibling.

Code explained:

Element nodes are type 1. If the sibling node is not an element node, it moves to the next nodes until an element node is found.


Get the First Child Element

The following code displays the first element node of the first <book>:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p id="demo"></p>

<script>
var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
        myFunction(this);
    }
};
xhttp.open("GET", "books.xml", true);
xhttp.send();

function myFunction(xml) {
    var xmlDoc = xml.responseXML;
    var x = get_firstChild(xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("book")[0]);
    document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = x.nodeName;
}

//check if the first node is an element node
function get_firstChild(n) {
    var y = n.firstChild;
    while (y.nodeType != 1) {
        y = y.nextSibling;
    }
    return y;
}
</script>

</body>
</html>

Output:

title
Try it Yourself »

Example explained:

  1. Load books.xml into xmlDoc
  2. Use the get_firstChild function on the first <book> element node to get the first child node that is an element node
  3. Output the node name of first child node that is an element node

More Examples

lastChild()
Use the lastChild() method and a custom function to get the last child node of a node.

nextSibling()
Use the nextSibling() method and a custom function to get the next sibling node of a node.

previousSibling()
Use the previousSibling() method and a custom function to get the previous sibling node of a node.