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    The DOMElement class

    (PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    Class synopsis

    DOMElement extends DOMNode {
    /* Properties */
    public readonly bool $schemaTypeInfo;
    public readonly string $tagName;
    /* Inherited properties */
    public readonly string $nodeName;
    public string $nodeValue;
    public readonly int $nodeType;
    public readonly DOMNode|null $parentNode;
    public readonly DOMNodeList $childNodes;
    public readonly DOMNode|null $firstChild;
    public readonly DOMNode|null $lastChild;
    public readonly DOMNode|null $previousSibling;
    public readonly DOMNode|null $nextSibling;
    public readonly DOMNamedNodeMap|null $attributes;
    public readonly DOMDocument|null $ownerDocument;
    public readonly string|null $namespaceURI;
    public string $prefix;
    public readonly string $localName;
    public readonly string|null $baseURI;
    public string $textContent;
    /* Methods */
    public __construct(string $qualifiedName, string|null $value = null, string $namespace = "")
    public getAttribute(string $qualifiedName): string
    public getAttributeNode(string $qualifiedName): DOMAttr|DOMNamespaceNode|false
    public getAttributeNodeNS(string|null $namespace, string $localName): DOMAttr|DOMNamespaceNode|null
    public getAttributeNS(string|null $namespace, string $localName): string
    public getElementsByTagName(string $qualifiedName): DOMNodeList
    public getElementsByTagNameNS(string|null $namespace, string $localName): DOMNodeList
    public hasAttribute(string $qualifiedName): bool
    public hasAttributeNS(string|null $namespace, string $localName): bool
    public removeAttribute(string $qualifiedName): bool
    public removeAttributeNode(DOMAttr $attr): DOMAttr|false
    public removeAttributeNS(string|null $namespace, string $localName): void
    public setAttribute(string $qualifiedName, string $value): DOMAttr|bool
    public setAttributeNode(DOMAttr $attr): DOMAttr|null|false
    public setAttributeNodeNS(DOMAttr $attr): DOMAttr|null|false
    public setAttributeNS(string|null $namespace, string $qualifiedName, string $value): void
    public setIdAttribute(string $qualifiedName, bool $isId): void
    public setIdAttributeNode(DOMAttr $attr, bool $isId): void
    public setIdAttributeNS(string $namespace, string $qualifiedName, bool $isId): void
    /* Inherited methods */
    public DOMNode::appendChild(DOMNode $node): DOMNode|false
    public DOMNode::C14N(
        bool $exclusive = false,
        bool $withComments = false,
        array|null $xpath = null,
        array|null $nsPrefixes = null
    ): string|false
    public DOMNode::C14NFile(
        string $uri,
        bool $exclusive = false,
        bool $withComments = false,
        array|null $xpath = null,
        array|null $nsPrefixes = null
    ): int|false
    public DOMNode::cloneNode(bool $deep = false): DOMNode|false
    public DOMNode::getLineNo(): int
    public DOMNode::getNodePath(): string|null
    public DOMNode::hasAttributes(): bool
    public DOMNode::hasChildNodes(): bool
    public DOMNode::insertBefore(DOMNode $node, DOMNode|null $child = null): DOMNode|false
    public DOMNode::isDefaultNamespace(string $namespace): bool
    public DOMNode::isSameNode(DOMNode $otherNode): bool
    public DOMNode::isSupported(string $feature, string $version): bool
    public DOMNode::lookupNamespaceUri(string $prefix): string
    public DOMNode::lookupPrefix(string $namespace): string|null
    public DOMNode::normalize(): void
    public DOMNode::removeChild(DOMNode $child): DOMNode|false
    public DOMNode::replaceChild(DOMNode $node, DOMNode $child): DOMNode|false
    }

    Properties

    schemaTypeInfo

    Not implemented yet, always return null

    tagName

    The element name

    Notes

    Note:

    The DOM extension uses UTF-8 encoding. Use utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() to work with texts in ISO-8859-1 encoding or iconv for other encodings.

    Table of Contents

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    User Contributed Notes 13 notes

    up
    96
    j DOT wagner ( AT ) medieninnovation.com
    15 years ago
    Caveat!
    It took me almost an hour to figure this out, so I hope it saves at least one of you some time.

    If you want to debug your DOM tree and try var_dump() or similar you will be fooled into thinking the DOMElement that you are looking at is empty, because var_dump() says: object(DOMElement)#1 (0) { }

    After much debugging I found out that all DOM objects are invisible to var_dump() and print_r(), my guess is because they are C objects and not PHP objects. So I tried saveXML(), which works fine on DOMDocument, but is not implemented on DOMElement.

    The solution is simple (if you know it):
    $xml = $domElement->ownerDocument->saveXML($domElement);

    This will give you an XML representation of $domElement.
    up
    62
    Pinochet
    15 years ago
    Hi to get the value of DOMElement just get the nodeValue public parameter (it is inherited from DOMNode):
    <?php
    echo $domElement->nodeValue;
    ?>
    Everything is obvious if you now about this thing ;-)
    up
    36
    Janne Enberg
    10 years ago
    This page doesn't list the inherited properties from DOMNode, e.g. the quite important textContent property. It would be immensely helpful if it would list those as well.
    up
    20
    dpetroff ( at ) gmail.com
    13 years ago
    Hi!

    Combining all th comments, the easiest way to get inner HTML of the node is to use this function:

    <?php
    function get_inner_html( $node ) {
            $innerHTML= '';
            $children = $node->childNodes;
        foreach (    $children as $child) {
                $innerHTML .= $child->ownerDocument->saveXML( $child );
        }

        return     $innerHTML;
    }
    ?>
    up
    7
    Daniel Morlock
    14 years ago
    It would be nice to have a function which converts a document/node/element into a string.

    Anyways, I use the following code snippet to get the innerHTML value of a DOMNode:

    <?php
    function getInnerHTML($Node)
    {
             $Body = $Node->ownerDocument->documentElement->firstChild->firstChild;
             $Document = new DOMDocument();    
             $Document->appendChild($Document->importNode($Body,true));
         return     $Document->saveHTML();
    }
    ?>
    up
    2
    felix dot klee at inka dot de
    11 years ago
    How to rename an element and preserve attributes:

    <?php

    // Changes the name of element $element to $newName.
    function renameElement($element, $newName) {
          $newElement = $element->ownerDocument->createElement($newName);
          $parentElement = $element->parentNode;
          $parentElement->insertBefore($newElement, $element);

          $childNodes = $element->childNodes;
      while (    $childNodes->length > 0) {
            $newElement->appendChild($childNodes->item(0));
      }

          $attributes = $element->attributes;
      while (    $attributes->length > 0) {
            $attribute = $attributes->item(0);
        if (!    is_null($attribute->namespaceURI)) {
              $newElement->setAttributeNS('http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/',
                                          'xmlns:'.$attribute->prefix,
                                          $attribute->namespaceURI);
        }
            $newElement->setAttributeNode($attribute);
      }

          $parentElement->removeChild($element);
    }

    function     prettyPrint($d) {
          $d->formatOutput = true;
      echo     '<pre>'.htmlspecialchars($d->saveXML()).'</pre>';
    }

    $d = new DOMDocument( '1.0' );
    $d->loadXML('<?xml version="1.0"?>
    <library>
      <data a:foo="1" x="bar" xmlns:a="http://example.com/a">
        <invite>
          <username>jmansa</username>
          <userid>1</userid>
        </invite>
        <update>1</update>
      </data>
    </library>'    );

    $xpath = new DOMXPath($d);
    $elements = $xpath->query('/library/data');
    if (    $elements->length == 1) {
          $element = $elements->item(0);
          renameElement($element, 'invites');
    }

    prettyPrint($d);

    ?>
    up
    2
    patrick smith
    15 years ago
    Although it may be preferable to use the dom to manipulate elements, sometimes it's useful to actually get the innerHTML from a document element (e.g. to load into a client-side editor).

    To get the innerHTML of a specific element ($elem_id) in a specific html file ($filepath):

    <?php
    $innerHTML     = '';
    $doc = new DOMDocument();
    $doc->loadHTMLFile($filepath);   
    $elem = $doc->getElementById($elem_id);

    // loop through all childNodes, getting html       
    $children = $elem->childNodes;
    foreach (    $children as $child) {
            $tmp_doc = new DOMDocument();
            $tmp_doc->appendChild($tmp_doc->importNode($child,true));       
            $innerHTML .= $tmp_doc->saveHTML();
    }
    ?>
    up
    2
    ae.fxx
    15 years ago
    Hi there.

    Remember to append a DOMNode (or any of its descendants) to a DOMDocument __BEFORE__ you try to append a child to it.

    I don't know why it has to be this way but it can't be done without it.

    bye
    up
    1
    nawaman at gmail dot com
    14 years ago
    The following code shows can text-only content be extracted from a document.

    <?php
    function getTextFromNode($Node, $Text = "") {
        if (    $Node->tagName == null)
            return     $Text.$Node->textContent;

            $Node = $Node->firstChild;
        if (    $Node != null)
                $Text = getTextFromNode($Node, $Text);

        while(    $Node->nextSibling != null) {
                $Text = getTextFromNode($Node->nextSibling, $Text);
                $Node = $Node->nextSibling;
        }
        return     $Text;
    }

    function     getTextFromDocument($DOMDoc) {
        return     getTextFromNode($DOMDoc->documentElement);
    }

    $Doc = new DOMDocument();
    $Doc->loadHTMLFile("Test.html");
    echo     getTextFromDocument($Doc)."\n";
    ?>
    up
    0
    johnny
    10 years ago
    Get html of a node
    $html .= $dom->saveHTML($node);
    up
    0
    loopduplicate at burningtoken dot com
    12 years ago
    This works perfect for me as well:

    <?php $xml = $domElement->ownerDocument->saveXML($domElement); ?>
    up
    -1
    Anonymous
    13 years ago
    you can use DOMNode::nodeValue
    DOMElement inherits this public property.

    $elem->nodeValue
    up
    -2
    Severin
    15 years ago
    I wanted to find similar Elements - thats why I built an Xpath-String like this - maybe somebody needs it... its not very pretty - but neither is domdocument :)

    <?php

    $dom    ->load($xmlFile))

    $xpathQuery = '//*';
    $xmlNodes = $xpath->query($xpathQuery);
           
    $pathlist = array();
    $attrlist = array();
    foreach (    $xmlNodes as $node) {

          $depth = $this->_getDomDepth($node);   //get Path-Depth (for array key)
          $pathlist[$depth] = $node->tagName;     // tagname
             
          $attrs = $node->attributes;
          $attr='';
          $a=0;
      foreach (    $attrs as $attrName => $attrNode)  // attributes
                    {
                  if (    $attrName !='reg')
                  {
                    if (    $a++!=0) $attr .= ' and ';
                        $attr .= '@'.$attrName.'='."'".$attrNode->value."'";
                  }
                }
             
                  $attrlist[$depth] = $attr?'['.$attr.']':'';
             
                  $path = ''; for ($i=0;$i<=$depth;$i++) $path .= '/'.$pathlist[$i].$attrlist[$i];  // the xpath of the actual Element

        // ... now you can go on and user $path to find similar elements
            }
      }
    }

    private function     _getDomDepth(DomNode $node)
       {
             $r = -2;
         while (    $node) {
               $r++; 
               $node = $node->parentNode;
         }
         return      $r;
       }
    ?>
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