The ProcessingInstruction object represents a processing instruction, which is used
in XML as a way to include processor-specific information in the text of the document.
A ProcessingInstruction consists of a target and content.
The target is the first token following the tag, while the content is that text from
the first non-white-space character after the target through the character immediately
before the '?>' which terminates the instruction.
So, for example, consider the following, typical processing instruction for an XML
document:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
The code to extract and display the type, target and content of this
ProcessingInstruction node might look something like this:
Code (JavaScript):
pi = xml_doc.firstChild;
document.write(pi.nodeType);
document.write("<br>" + pi.target);
document.write("<br>" + pi.data);
Output:
7
xml
version="1.0"
A ProcessingInstruction 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 a ProcessingInstruction, 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
data Property
This is a read-only property that returns the 'content' of a ProcessingInstruction.
Syntax: ProcessingInstruction.data
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
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
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
target Property
This is a read-only property that returns the 'target' of a ProcessingInstruction.
Syntax: ProcessingInstruction.target
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)
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