Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification

### REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001

# Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification

### Version 1.0

### W3C Recommendation 1 October, 1998

This version
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/DOM.ps
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/DOM.pdf
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/DOM.tgz
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/DOM.zip
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/DOM.txt
Latest version
  http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1
Previous versions
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/PR-DOM-Level-1-19980818
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-DOM-19980720
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-DOM-19980416
  http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-DOM-19980318
  http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-DOM-971209
  http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-DOM-971009

WG Chair
  Lauren Wood, SoftQuad, Inc.
Editors
  Vidur Apparao, Netscape
  Steve Byrne, Sun
  Mike Champion, ArborText
  Scott Isaacs, Microsoft
  Ian Jacobs, W3C
  Arnaud Le Hors, W3C
  Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS
  Jonathan Robie, Texcel Research
  Robert Sutor, IBM
  Chris Wilson, Microsoft
  Lauren Wood, SoftQuad, Inc.
Principal Contributors
  Vidur Apparao, Netscape
  Steve Byrne, Sun (until November 1997)
  Mike Champion, ArborText, Inc.
  Scott Isaacs, Microsoft (until January, 1998)
  Arnaud Le Hors, W3C
  Gavin Nicol, Inso EPS
  Jonathan Robie, Texcel Research
  Peter Sharpe, SoftQuad, Inc.
  Bill Smith, Sun (after November 1997)
  Jared Sorensen, Novell
  Robert Sutor, IBM
  Ray Whitmer, iMall
  Chris Wilson, Microsoft (after January, 1998)

## Status of this document

This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.

The authors of this document are the DOM Working Group members, different chapters may have different editors.

Comments on this document should be sent to the public mailing list www-dom@w3.org.

A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.

### Errata

The list of known errors in this document is found at http://www.w3.org/DOM/updates/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001-errata.html.

### Available Languages

The English version of this specification is the only normative version. However, for translations in other languages see http://www.w3.org/DOM/updates/REC-DOM-Level-1-translations.html.

## Abstract

This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 1, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model provides a standard set of objects for representing HTML and XML documents, a standard model of how these objects can be combined, and a standard interface for accessing and manipulating them. Vendors can support the DOM as an interface to their proprietary data structures and APIs, and content authors can write to the standard DOM interfaces rather than product-specific APIs, thus increasing interoperability on the Web.

The goal of the DOM specification is to define a programmatic interface for XML and HTML. The DOM Level 1 specification is separated into two parts: Core and HTML. The Core DOM Level 1 section provides a low-level set of fundamental interfaces that can represent any structured document, as well as defining extended interfaces for representing an XML document. These extended XML interfaces need not be implemented by a DOM implementation that only provides access to HTML documents; all of the fundamental interfaces in the Core section must be implemented. A compliant DOM implementation that implements the extended XML interfaces is required to also implement the fundamental Core interfaces, but not the HTML interfaces. The HTML Level 1 section provides additional, higher-level interfaces that are used with the fundamental interfaces defined in the Core Level 1 section to provide a more convenient view of an HTML document. A compliant implementation of the HTML DOM implements all of the fundamental Core interfaces as well as the HTML interfaces.

## Table of contents