DevGuru XML DOM Entity Object



			OBJECT: Entity
			The Entity object represents the actual entity (parsed or unparsed), and not the entity declaration. If an XML processor expands entities before passing the structure model to the DOM, the document tree will contain no EntityReference nodes. XML does not require a non-validating processor to expand external entities. If this is the case, the replacement value of the entity may not be available. Where the replacement value is available, the corresponding Entity node's child list represents the structure of the replacement text. Otherwise the child list is empty. An Entity does not have a parent node, and all its descendants are read-only. The name of an Entity is contained in the nodeName property. In the example that follows the 'staff.xml' file is used which contains a couple of entities defined in the DOCTYPE declaration: XML: <!DOCTYPE staff SYSTEM "staff.dtd" [ <!ENTITY snrex "senior executive"> <!ENTITY pa "personal assistant"> ]> The code gets a DocumentType object for this document, and produces a NamedNodeMap of all its entities. It then displays the name and text of the first of these. Code (VBScript): Set objXMLDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") objXMLDoc.async = False objXMLDoc.load("staff.xml") Set DocType = objXMLDoc.docType Set EntList = DocType.entities Set Ent = EntList(0) document.write(Ent.nodeName & ": " & Ent.text) Output: snrex: senior executive An Entity is also a Node object, and so inherits various properties and methods from it. For details of the values returned by the nodeName, nodeType and nodeValue properties for an Entity, see the Node object. denotes a Microsoft extension to the W3C DOM. PROPERTIES attributes Property This is a read-only property that returns an NamedNodeMap for nodes that can have attributes. Syntax: Node.attributes baseName Property This is a read-only property that returns the base name for a node. Syntax: Node.baseName childNodes Property This is a read-only property containing a node list of all children for those elements that can have them. Syntax: Node.childNodes dataType Property This is a read-only property that specifies the data type for the node. Syntax: Node.dataType definition Property This property returns the definition of the node in the DTD or schema. Syntax: Node.definition firstChild Property This is a read-only property that returns the first child node of a node. If there is none, it returns null. Syntax: Node.firstChild lastChild Property This is a read-only property that returns the last child node of a node. If there is none, it returns null. Syntax: Node.lastChild namespaceURI Property This property is read-only and returns the URI (Universal Resource Indentifier) of the namespace. Syntax: Node.namespaceURI nextSibling Property This property returns the next node in the parent's child list, or null if there is none or the node is of a type that cannot be a child node (Attr, Document, DocumentFragment). Syntax: Node.nextSibling nodeName Property This property is read-only and contains the name of the node, depending on type. Syntax: Node.nodeName nodeType Property This is a read-only property specifying the type of the node. Syntax: Node.nodeType nodeTypedValue Property This property contains the value of this node expressed in its defined data type. Syntax: Node.nodeTypedValue nodeTypeString Property This property is read-only and returns the node type in string form. Syntax: Node.nodeTypeString nodeValue Property This property contains the value of the node, depending on type. Syntax: Node.nodeValue notationName Property This property contains the name of the notation for unparsed entities, and null for parsed entities. Syntax: Entity.notationName ownerDocument Property This property returns the Document object to which the node belongs. If the node itself is a document, then it returns null. Syntax: Node.ownerDocument parentNode Property This is a read-only property that returns the parent node of all nodes except Document, DocumentFragment and Attr, which cannot have parent nodes. Syntax: Node.parentNode parsed Property This property returns a boolean value of true if this node and all of its descendants have been parsed and instantiated. Otherwise it returns false. Syntax: Node.parsed prefix Property This property is read-only and returns the namespace prefix, or an empty string if none is specified. For example, it would return 'xxx' for the element <xxx:yyy>. Syntax: Node.prefix previousSibling Property This property returns the previous node in the parent's child list, or null if there is none or the node is of a type that cannot be a child node (Attr, Document, DocumentFragment). Syntax: Node.previousSibling publicID Property This is a read-only property that contains the public identifier for the entity. If none was specified, it contains null. Syntax: Entity.publicID specified Property This property returns a boolean value indicating whether this node (usually an attribute) is explicitly specified or derived from a default value in the DTD or schema. Syntax: Node.specified systemID Property This is a read-only property that contains the system identifier for the entity. If none was specified, it contains null. Syntax: Entity.systemID text Property This property contains the text content of this node and its subtrees. Syntax: Node.text xml Property This property contains the XML representation of this node and its descendants. Syntax: Node.xml METHODS appendChild Method This method appends a new child node to the list of children for this node. Syntax: Node.appendChild(tagName) cloneNode Method This method creates a clone node which is an exact replica of this node. Syntax: Node.cloneNode(deep) hasChildNodes Method This method is a convenient way to determine whether a node has child nodes, returning true if it has, and false if not. Syntax: Node.hasChildNodes( ) insertBefore Method This method is used to insert a new child node before an existing one. If no child node exists, the new child node becomes the first. Syntax: Node.insertBefore(newChild, refChild) removeChild Method This method removes the specified node from the list of children and returns it. Syntax: Node.removeChild(oldChild) replaceChild Method This method is used to replace one of a node's children with another. It returns the old child. Syntax: Node.replaceChild(newChild, oldChild) selectNodes Method This method creates a NodeList of all the matching descendant nodes returned by the specified pattern-matching operation. Syntax: Node.selectNodes(patternString) selectSingleNode Method This method returns a Node object for the first descendant node to match the specified pattern. Syntax: Node.selectSingleNode(patternString) transformNode Method This method processes this node and its descendants using the specified XSL stylesheet, and returns the resulting transformation. Syntax: Node.transformNode(stylesheet) transformNodeToObject Method This method processes this node and its descendants using the specified XSL stylesheet, and returns the resulting transformation in the specified object. Syntax: Node.transformNodeToObject(stylesheet, outputObject)