Text

public interface Text
implements CharacterData

org.w3c.dom.Text
CDATASection CDATA sections are used to escape blocks of text containing characters that would otherwise be regarded as markup. 


The Text interface inherits from CharacterData and represents the textual content (termed character data in XML) of an Element or Attr. If there is no markup inside an element's content, the text is contained in a single object implementing the Text interface that is the only child of the element. If there is markup, it is parsed into the information items (elements, comments, etc.) and Text nodes that form the list of children of the element.

When a document is first made available via the DOM, there is only one Text node for each block of text. Users may create adjacent Text nodes that represent the contents of a given element without any intervening markup, but should be aware that there is no way to represent the separations between these nodes in XML or HTML, so they will not (in general) persist between DOM editing sessions. The Node.normalize() method merges any such adjacent Text objects into a single node for each block of text.

No lexical check is done on the content of a Text node and, depending on its position in the document, some characters must be escaped during serialization using character references; e.g. the characters "<&" if the textual content is part of an element or of an attribute, the character sequence "]]>" when part of an element, the quotation mark character " or the apostrophe character ' when part of an attribute.

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

Summary

Inherited constants

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.

Public methods

abstract String getWholeText()

Returns all text of Text nodes logically-adjacent text nodes to this node, concatenated in document order.

abstract boolean isElementContentWhitespace()

Returns whether this text node contains element content whitespace, often abusively called "ignorable whitespace".

abstract Text replaceWholeText(String content)

Replaces the text of the current node and all logically-adjacent text nodes with the specified text.

abstract Text splitText(int offset)

Breaks this node into two nodes at the specified offset, keeping both in the tree as siblings.

Inherited methods

abstract void appendData(String arg)

Append the string to the end of the character data of the node.

abstract void deleteData(int offset, int count)

Remove a range of 16-bit units from the node.

abstract String getData()

The character data of the node that implements this interface.

abstract int getLength()

The number of 16-bit units that are available through data and the substringData method below.

abstract void insertData(int offset, String arg)

Insert a string at the specified 16-bit unit offset.

abstract void replaceData(int offset, int count, String arg)

Replace the characters starting at the specified 16-bit unit offset with the specified string.

abstract void setData(String data)

The character data of the node that implements this interface.

abstract String substringData(int offset, int count)

Extracts a range of data from the 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.

Public methods

getWholeText

Added in API level 8
public abstract String getWholeText ()

Returns all text of Text nodes logically-adjacent text nodes to this node, concatenated in document order.
For instance, in the example below wholeText on the Text node that contains "bar" returns "barfoo", while on the Text node that contains "foo" it returns "barfoo".

Returns
String

isElementContentWhitespace

Added in API level 8
public abstract boolean isElementContentWhitespace ()

Returns whether this text node contains element content whitespace, often abusively called "ignorable whitespace". The text node is determined to contain whitespace in element content during the load of the document or if validation occurs while using Document.normalizeDocument().

Returns
boolean

replaceWholeText

Added in API level 8
public abstract Text replaceWholeText (String content)

Replaces the text of the current node and all logically-adjacent text nodes with the specified text. All logically-adjacent text nodes are removed including the current node unless it was the recipient of the replacement text.
This method returns the node which received the replacement text. The returned node is:

  • null, when the replacement text is the empty string;
  • the current node, except when the current node is read-only;
  • a new Text node of the same type ( Text or CDATASection) as the current node inserted at the location of the replacement.

For instance, in the above example calling replaceWholeText on the Text node that contains "bar" with "yo" in argument results in the following:
Where the nodes to be removed are read-only descendants of an EntityReference, the EntityReference must be removed instead of the read-only nodes. If any EntityReference to be removed has descendants that are not EntityReference, Text, or CDATASection nodes, the replaceWholeText method must fail before performing any modification of the document, raising a DOMException with the code NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR.
For instance, in the example below calling replaceWholeText on the Text node that contains "bar" fails, because the EntityReference node "ent" contains an Element node which cannot be removed.

Parameters
content String: The content of the replacing Text node.

Returns
Text The Text node created with the specified content.

Throws
DOMException NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if one of the Text nodes being replaced is readonly.

splitText

Added in API level 1
public abstract Text splitText (int offset)

Breaks this node into two nodes at the specified offset, keeping both in the tree as siblings. After being split, this node will contain all the content up to the offset point. A new node of the same type, which contains all the content at and after the offset point, is returned. If the original node had a parent node, the new node is inserted as the next sibling of the original node. When the offset is equal to the length of this node, the new node has no data.

Parameters
offset int: The 16-bit unit offset at which to split, starting from 0.

Returns
Text The new node, of the same type as this node.

Throws
DOMException INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of 16-bit units in data.
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.