DOM Document Reference

The document Interface

In the DOM, the document object represents the entire HTML or XML document1. It is contained by the window object (see DOM window Reference) and may contain any number of elements (see DOM Element Reference.)

As you can see from the lists below, the interfaces on document deal with such things as the document type, features of the document such as its color and formatting, the plugins and applets that are exposed to the user in the document, as well as methods for creating all of the document's child nodes, or elements that typically live in the structural representation of the whole document, such as the <BODY> element, a <TABLE> and so forth.

Properties


attributes	Returns an array of attributes on the given element.
alinkColor	Returns or sets the color of active links in the document body.
anchors	anchors returns a list of all of the anchors in the document.
applets	applets returns an ordered list of the applets within a document.
bgColor	bgColor gets/sets the background color of the current document.
body	body returns the BODY node of the current document.
characterSet	Returns the character set being used by the document.
childNodes	Returns an array of child nodes on the given element node.
compatMode	Indicates whether the document is rendered in Quirks or Strict mode.
cookie	Returns a semicolon-separated list of the cookies for that document or sets a single cookie.
contentWindow	Returns the window object for the containing window.
doctype	Returns the Document Type Definition (DTD) of the current document.
documentElement	Returns the Element that is a direct child of document, which in most cases is the HTML element.
domain	domain returns the domain of the current document.
embeds	embeds returns a list of the embedded OBJECTS within the current document.
fgColor	fgColor gets/sets the foreground color, or text color, of the current document.
firstChild	firstChild returns the first node in the list of direct children of the document.
forms	forms returns a list of the `FORM` elements within the current document.
height	height gets/sets the height of the current document.
images	images returns a list of the images in the current document.
implementation	Returns the DOM implementation associated with the current document.
lastModified	Returns the date on which the document was last modified.
linkColor	Gets/sets the color of hyperlinks in the document.
links	Returns an array of all the hyperlinks in the document.
location	Returns the URI of the current document.
namespaceURI	Returns the XML namespace of the current document.
nextSibling	Returns the `node` immediately following the current one in the tree.
nodeName	Returns the name of the current node as a string.
nodeType	Returns the node type of the current document.
nodeValue	Returns the value of particular types of nodes.
ownerDocument	Returns an object reference to the document that owns the current element.
parentNode	Returns an object reference to the parent node.
plugins	Returns an array of the available plugins.
previousSibling	Returns the `node` immediately previous to the current one in the tree.
referrer	Returns the URI of the page that linked to this page.
styleSheets	The stylesheets property returns a list of the `stylesheet` objects on the current document.
title	Returns the title of the current document.
URL	Returns a string containing the URL of the current document.
vlinkColor	Gets/sets the color of visited hyperlinks.
width	Returns the width of the current document.

Methods


clear	Clears a document.
close	Closes a document stream for writing.
createAttribute	Create a new attribute on the current element.
createDocumentFragment	Creates a new document fragment.
createElement	Creates a new element.
createTextNode	Creates a text node.
getElementById	Returns an object reference to the identified element.
getElementsByName	Returns a list of elements with the given name.
getElementsByTagName	Returns a list of elements with the given tag name.
open	Opens a document stream for writing.
write	Writes text to a document.
writeln	Write a line of text to a document.

Event Handlers


onblur	Returns the onBlur event handler code, if any, that exists on the current element.
onclick	Returns the onClick event handler code on the current element.
ondblclick	Returns the onDblClick event handler code on the current element.
onfocus	Returns the onFocus event handler code on the current element.
onkeydown	Returns the onKeyDown event handler code on the current element.
onkeypress	Returns the onKeyPress event handler code for the current element.
onkeyup	Returns the onKeyUp event handler code for the current element.
onmousedown	Returns the onMouseDown event handler code for the current element.
onmousemove	Returns the onMouseMove event handler code for the current element.
onmouseout	Returns the onMouseOut event handler code for the current element.
onmouseover	Returns the onMouseOver event handler code for the current element.
onmouseup	Returns the onMouseUp event handler code for the current element.
onresize	Returns the onResize event handler code for the current element.

Strictly speaking, the document object represents only HTML and XHTML documents. The XML document is represented by a different document object, XMLDocument, and the XUL document by XULDocument. Though these objects provide very similar interfaces, they are not quite the same as the document object described here.