Entity

Class Overview

This interface represents a known entity, either parsed or unparsed, in an XML document. Note that this models the entity itself not the entity declaration.

The nodeName attribute that is inherited from Node contains the name of the entity.

An XML processor may choose to completely expand entities before the structure model is passed to the DOM; in this case there will be no EntityReference nodes in the document tree.

XML does not mandate that a non-validating XML processor read and process entity declarations made in the external subset or declared in parameter entities. This means that parsed entities declared in the external subset need not be expanded by some classes of applications, and that the replacement text of the entity may not be available. When the replacement text is available, the corresponding Entity node's child list represents the structure of that replacement value. Otherwise, the child list is empty.

DOM Level 3 does not support editing Entity nodes; if a user wants to make changes to the contents of an Entity, every related EntityReference node has to be replaced in the structure model by a clone of the Entity's contents, and then the desired changes must be made to each of those clones instead. Entity nodes and all their descendants are readonly.

An Entity node does not have any parent.

Note: If the entity contains an unbound namespace prefix, the namespaceURI of the corresponding node in the Entity node subtree is null. The same is true for EntityReference nodes that refer to this entity, when they are created using the createEntityReference method of the Document interface.

See also the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification.

Summary

[Expand] Inherited Constants

From interface org.w3c.dom.Node short ATTRIBUTE_NODE The node is an Attr. short CDATA_SECTION_NODE The node is a CDATASection. short COMMENT_NODE The node is a Comment. short DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE The node is a DocumentFragment. short DOCUMENT_NODE The node is a Document. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY The node is contained by the reference node. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS The node contains the reference node. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED The two nodes are disconnected. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING The node follows the reference node. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_IMPLEMENTATION_SPECIFIC The determination of preceding versus following is implementation-specific. short DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING The second node precedes the reference node. short DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE The node is a DocumentType. short ELEMENT_NODE The node is an Element. short ENTITY_NODE The node is an Entity. short ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE The node is an EntityReference. short NOTATION_NODE The node is a Notation. short PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE The node is a ProcessingInstruction. short TEXT_NODE The node is a Text node.

[Expand] Inherited Methods

From interface org.w3c.dom.Node abstract Node appendChild(Node newChild) Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. abstract Node cloneNode(boolean deep) Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes. abstract short compareDocumentPosition(Node other) Compares the reference node, i.e. abstract NamedNodeMap getAttributes() A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes of this node (if it is an Element) or null otherwise. abstract String getBaseURI() The absolute base URI of this node or null if the implementation wasn't able to obtain an absolute URI. abstract NodeList getChildNodes() A NodeList that contains all children of this node. abstract Object getFeature(String feature, String version) This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in . abstract Node getFirstChild() The first child of this node. abstract Node getLastChild() The last child of this node. abstract String getLocalName() Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node. abstract String getNamespaceURI() The namespace URI of this node, or null if it is unspecified (see ). abstract Node getNextSibling() The node immediately following this node. abstract String getNodeName() The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. abstract short getNodeType() A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above. abstract String getNodeValue() The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. abstract Document getOwnerDocument() The Document object associated with this node. abstract Node getParentNode() The parent of this node. abstract String getPrefix() The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified. abstract Node getPreviousSibling() The node immediately preceding this node. abstract String getTextContent() This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants. abstract Object getUserData(String key) Retrieves the object associated to a key on a this node. abstract boolean hasAttributes() Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes. abstract boolean hasChildNodes() Returns whether this node has any children. abstract Node insertBefore(Node newChild, Node refChild) Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild. abstract boolean isDefaultNamespace(String namespaceURI) This method checks if the specified namespaceURI is the default namespace or not. abstract boolean isEqualNode(Node arg) Tests whether two nodes are equal. abstract boolean isSameNode(Node other) Returns whether this node is the same node as the given one. abstract boolean isSupported(String feature, String version) Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node, as specified in . abstract String lookupNamespaceURI(String prefix) Look up the namespace URI associated to the given prefix, starting from this node. abstract String lookupPrefix(String namespaceURI) Look up the prefix associated to the given namespace URI, starting from this node. abstract void normalize() Puts all Text nodes in the full depth of the sub-tree underneath this Node, including attribute nodes, into a "normal" form where only structure (e.g., elements, comments, processing instructions, CDATA sections, and entity references) separates Text nodes, i.e., there are neither adjacent Text nodes nor empty Text nodes. abstract Node removeChild(Node oldChild) Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, and returns it. abstract Node replaceChild(Node newChild, Node oldChild) Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns the oldChild node. abstract void setNodeValue(String nodeValue) The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above. abstract void setPrefix(String prefix) The namespace prefix of this node, or null if it is unspecified. abstract void setTextContent(String textContent) This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants. abstract Object setUserData(String key, Object data, UserDataHandler handler) Associate an object to a key on this node.