@xmldom/xmldom

Since version 0.7.0 this package is published to npm as @xmldom/xmldom and no longer as xmldom, because we are no longer able to publish xmldom.
For better readability in the docs we will continue to talk about this library as "xmldom".

xmldom is a javascript ponyfill to provide the following APIs that are present in modern browsers to other runtimes:

convert an XML string into a DOM tree

new DOMParser().parseFromString(xml, mimeType) => Document

create, access and modify a DOM tree

new DOMImplementation().createDocument(...) => Document

serialize a DOM tree back into an XML string

new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(node) => string

The target runtimes xmldom supports are currently Node >= v10 (ES5) and Rhino (not tested as part of CI).

When deciding how to fix bugs or implement features, xmldom tries to stay as close as possible to the various related specifications/standards.
As indicated by the version starting with 0., this implementation is not feature complete and some implemented features differ from what the specifications describe.
Issues and PRs for such differences are always welcome, even when they only provide a failing test case.

This project was forked from it's original source in 2019, more details about that transition can be found in the CHANGELOG.

Usage

Install:

npm install @xmldom/xmldom

Example:

const { DOMParser } = require('@xmldom/xmldom')

const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(
    '<xml xmlns="a" xmlns:c="./lite">\n' +
        '\t<child>test</child>\n' +
        '\t<child></child>\n' +
        '\t<child/>\n' +
        '</xml>',
    'text/xml'
)
doc.documentElement.setAttribute('x', 'y')
doc.documentElement.setAttributeNS('./lite', 'c:x', 'y2')
console.info(doc)

const nsAttr = doc.documentElement.getAttributeNS('./lite', 'x')
console.info(nsAttr)

Note: in Typescript and ES6 you can use the import approach, as follows:

import { DOMParser } from '@xmldom/xmldom'

API Reference

DOMParser:

parseFromString(xmlsource,mimeType)

options extension by xmldom (not DOM standard!!)

//added the options argument
new DOMParser(options)

//errorHandler is supported
new DOMParser({
	/**
	 * locator is always need for error position info
	 */
	locator:{},
	/**
	 * you can override the errorHandler for xml parser
	 * @link http://www.saxproject.org/apidoc/org/xml/sax/ErrorHandler.html
	 */
	errorHandler:{warning:function(w){console.warn(w)},error:callback,fatalError:callback}
	//only callback model
	//errorHandler:function(level,msg){console.log(level,msg)}
})

XMLSerializer
```
serializeToString(node)
```

DOM level2 method and attribute:

Node

 attribute:
 	nodeValue|prefix
 readonly attribute:
 	nodeName|nodeType|parentNode|childNodes|firstChild|lastChild|previousSibling|nextSibling|attributes|ownerDocument|namespaceURI|localName
 method:	
 	insertBefore(newChild, refChild)
 	replaceChild(newChild, oldChild)
 	removeChild(oldChild)
 	appendChild(newChild)
 	hasChildNodes()
 	cloneNode(deep)
 	normalize()
 	isSupported(feature, version)
 	hasAttributes()

DOMException The DOMException class has the following constants (and value of type Number):
1. DOMException.INDEX_SIZE_ERR (1)
2. DOMException.DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR (2)
3. DOMException.HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR (3)
4. DOMException.WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR (4)
5. DOMException.INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR (5)
6. DOMException.NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR (6)
7. DOMException.NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR (7)
8. DOMException.NOT_FOUND_ERR (8)
9. DOMException.NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR (9)
10. DOMException.INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR (10)
11. DOMException.INVALID_STATE_ERR (11)
12. DOMException.SYNTAX_ERR (12)
13. DOMException.INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR (13)
14. DOMException.NAMESPACE_ERR (14)
15. DOMException.INVALID_ACCESS_ERR (15)
The DOMException object has the following properties: code This property is of type Number.
- extends the Error type thrown as part of DOM API:

DOMImplementation

 method:
 	hasFeature(feature, version)
 	createDocumentType(qualifiedName, publicId, systemId)
 	createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, doctype)

Document : Node

 readonly attribute:
 	doctype|implementation|documentElement
 method:
 	createElement(tagName)
 	createDocumentFragment()
 	createTextNode(data)
 	createComment(data)
 	createCDATASection(data)
 	createProcessingInstruction(target, data)
 	createAttribute(name)
 	createEntityReference(name)
 	getElementsByTagName(tagname)
 	importNode(importedNode, deep)
 	createElementNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
 	createAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
 	getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	getElementById(elementId)

DocumentFragment : Node

Element : Node

 readonly attribute:
 	tagName
 method:
 	getAttribute(name)
 	setAttribute(name, value)
 	removeAttribute(name)
 	getAttributeNode(name)
 	setAttributeNode(newAttr)
 	removeAttributeNode(oldAttr)
 	getElementsByTagName(name)
 	getAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	setAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, value)
 	removeAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	getAttributeNodeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	setAttributeNodeNS(newAttr)
 	getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	hasAttribute(name)
 	hasAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)

Attr : Node

 attribute:
 	value
 readonly attribute:
 	name|specified|ownerElement

NodeList

 readonly attribute:
 	length
 method:
 	item(index)

NamedNodeMap

 readonly attribute:
 	length
 method:
 	getNamedItem(name)
 	setNamedItem(arg)
 	removeNamedItem(name)
 	item(index)
 	getNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)
 	setNamedItemNS(arg)
 	removeNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)

CharacterData : Node

 method:
 	substringData(offset, count)
 	appendData(arg)
 	insertData(offset, arg)
 	deleteData(offset, count)
 	replaceData(offset, count, arg)

Text : CharacterData
```
 method:
 	splitText(offset)
```
CDATASection
Comment : CharacterData

DocumentType

 readonly attribute:
 	name|entities|notations|publicId|systemId|internalSubset

Notation : Node

 readonly attribute:
 	publicId|systemId

Entity : Node

 readonly attribute:
 	publicId|systemId|notationName

EntityReference : Node

ProcessingInstruction : Node

 attribute:
 	data
 readonly attribute:
 	target

DOM level 3 support:

Node

 attribute:
 	textContent
 method:
 	isDefaultNamespace(namespaceURI){
 	lookupNamespaceURI(prefix)

DOM extension by xmldom

[Node] Source position extension;

  attribute:
  	//Numbered starting from '1'
  	lineNumber
  	//Numbered starting from '1'
  	columnNumber

Specs

The implementation is based on several specifications:

DOM Parsing and Serialization

From the W3C DOM Parsing and Serialization (WD 2016) xmldom provides an implementation for the interfaces:

DOMParser
XMLSerializer

Note that there are some known deviations between this implementation and the W3 specifications.

Note: The latest version of this spec has the status "Editors Draft", since it is under active development. One major change is that the definition of the DOMParser interface has been moved to the HTML spec

DOM

The original author claims that xmldom implements [DOM Level 2] in a "fully compatible" way and some parts of [DOM Level 3], but there are not enough tests to prove this. Both Specifications are now superseded by the [DOM Level 4 aka Living standard] wich has a much broader scope than xmldom.

xmldom implements the following interfaces (most constructors are currently not exposed):

Attr
CDATASection
CharacterData
Comment
Document
DocumentFragment
DocumentType
DOMException (constructor exposed)
DOMImplementation (constructor exposed)
Element
Entity
EntityReference
LiveNodeList
NamedNodeMap
Node (constructor exposed)
NodeList
Notation
ProcessingInstruction
Text

more details are available in the (incomplete) API Reference section.

HTML

xmldom does not have any goal of supporting the full spec, but it has some capability to parse, report and serialize things differently when "detecting HTML" (by checking the default namespace). There is an upcoming change to better align the implementation with the latest specs, related to xmldom#203.

SAX, XML, XMLNS

xmldom has an own SAX parser implementation to do the actual parsing, which implements some interfaces in alignment with the Java interfaces SAX defines:

XMLReader
DOMHandler

There is an idea/proposal to make ti possible to replace it with something else in xmldom#55

niklasl/xmldom