Since version 0.7.0 this package is published to npm as @xmldom/xmldom and no longer as xmldom, because we are no longer able to publish xmldom.
For better readability in the docs we will continue to talk about this library as "xmldom".

xmldom is a javascript ponyfill to provide the following APIs that are present in modern browsers to other runtimes:

• convert an XML string into a DOM tree

  new DOMParser().parseFromString(xml, mimeType) => Document
  

• create, access and modify a DOM tree

  new DOMImplementation().createDocument(...) => Document
  

• serialize a DOM tree back into an XML string

  new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(node) => string
  

The target runtimes xmldom supports are currently Node >= v10 (ES5) and Rhino (not tested as part of CI).

When deciding how to fix bugs or implement features, xmldom tries to stay as close as possible to the various related specifications/standards.
As indicated by the version starting with 0., this implementation is not feature complete and some implemented features differ from what the specifications describe.
Issues and PRs for such differences are always welcome, even when they only provide a failing test case.

This project was forked from it's original source in 2019, more details about that transition can be found in the CHANGELOG.

npm install @xmldom/xmldom

In NodeJS

const { DOMParser, XMLSerializer } = require('@xmldom/xmldom')

const source = `<xml xmlns="a">
	<child>test</child>
	<child/>
</xml>`

const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(source, 'text/xml')

const serialized = new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(doc)

Note: in Typescript and ES6(see #316) you can use the import approach, as follows:

import { DOMParser } from '@xmldom/xmldom'

• DOMParser:

  parseFromString(xmlsource,mimeType)

  • options extension by xmldom (not DOM standard!!)

  //added the options argument
  new DOMParser(options)
  
  //errorHandler is supported
  new DOMParser({
  	/**
  	 * locator is always need for error position info
  	 */
  	locator:{},
  	/**
  	 * you can override the errorHandler for xml parser
  	 * @link http://www.saxproject.org/apidoc/org/xml/sax/ErrorHandler.html
  	 */
  	errorHandler:{warning:function(w){console.warn(w)},error:callback,fatalError:callback}
  	//only callback model
  	//errorHandler:function(level,msg){console.log(level,msg)}
  })
  	

• XMLSerializer

  serializeToString(node)

• Node

   attribute:
   	nodeValue|prefix
   readonly attribute:
   	nodeName|nodeType|parentNode|childNodes|firstChild|lastChild|previousSibling|nextSibling|attributes|ownerDocument|namespaceURI|localName
   method:	
   	insertBefore(newChild, refChild)
   	replaceChild(newChild, oldChild)
   	removeChild(oldChild)
   	appendChild(newChild)
   	hasChildNodes()
   	cloneNode(deep)
   	normalize()
   	isSupported(feature, version)
   	hasAttributes()
  

• DOMException The DOMException class has the following constants (and value of type Number):

  1. DOMException.INDEX_SIZE_ERR (1)
  2. DOMException.DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR (2)
  3. DOMException.HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR (3)
  4. DOMException.WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR (4)
  5. DOMException.INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR (5)
  6. DOMException.NO_DATA_ALLOWED_ERR (6)
  7. DOMException.NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR (7)
  8. DOMException.NOT_FOUND_ERR (8)
  9. DOMException.NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR (9)
  10. DOMException.INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR (10)
  11. DOMException.INVALID_STATE_ERR (11)
  12. DOMException.SYNTAX_ERR (12)
  13. DOMException.INVALID_MODIFICATION_ERR (13)
  14. DOMException.NAMESPACE_ERR (14)
  15. DOMException.INVALID_ACCESS_ERR (15)

  The DOMException object has the following properties: code This property is of type Number.

  • extends the Error type thrown as part of DOM API:

• DOMImplementation

   method:
   	hasFeature(feature, version)
   	createDocumentType(qualifiedName, publicId, systemId)
   	createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, doctype)
  

• Document : Node

   readonly attribute:
   	doctype|implementation|documentElement
   method:
   	createElement(tagName)
   	createDocumentFragment()
   	createTextNode(data)
   	createComment(data)
   	createCDATASection(data)
   	createProcessingInstruction(target, data)
   	createAttribute(name)
   	createEntityReference(name)
   	getElementsByTagName(tagname)
   	importNode(importedNode, deep)
   	createElementNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
   	createAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
   	getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	getElementById(elementId)
  

• DocumentFragment : Node

• Element : Node

   readonly attribute:
   	tagName
   method:
   	getAttribute(name)
   	setAttribute(name, value)
   	removeAttribute(name)
   	getAttributeNode(name)
   	setAttributeNode(newAttr)
   	removeAttributeNode(oldAttr)
   	getElementsByTagName(name)
   	getAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	setAttributeNS(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, value)
   	removeAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	getAttributeNodeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	setAttributeNodeNS(newAttr)
   	getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	hasAttribute(name)
   	hasAttributeNS(namespaceURI, localName)
  

• Attr : Node

   attribute:
   	value
   readonly attribute:
   	name|specified|ownerElement
  

• NodeList

   readonly attribute:
   	length
   method:
   	item(index)
  

• NamedNodeMap

   readonly attribute:
   	length
   method:
   	getNamedItem(name)
   	setNamedItem(arg)
   	removeNamedItem(name)
   	item(index)
   	getNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)
   	setNamedItemNS(arg)
   	removeNamedItemNS(namespaceURI, localName)
  

• CharacterData : Node

   method:
   	substringData(offset, count)
   	appendData(arg)
   	insertData(offset, arg)
   	deleteData(offset, count)
   	replaceData(offset, count, arg)
  

• Text : CharacterData

   method:
   	splitText(offset)
  

• CDATASection

• Comment : CharacterData

• DocumentType

   readonly attribute:
   	name|entities|notations|publicId|systemId|internalSubset
  

• Notation : Node

   readonly attribute:
   	publicId|systemId
  

• Entity : Node

   readonly attribute:
   	publicId|systemId|notationName
  

• EntityReference : Node

• ProcessingInstruction : Node

   attribute:
   	data
   readonly attribute:
   	target
  

• Node

   attribute:
   	textContent
   method:
   	isDefaultNamespace(namespaceURI){
   	lookupNamespaceURI(prefix)
  

• [Node] Source position extension;

    attribute:
    	//Numbered starting from '1'
    	lineNumber
    	//Numbered starting from '1'
    	columnNumber
  

The implementation is based on several specifications:

From the W3C DOM Parsing and Serialization (WD 2016) xmldom provides an implementation for the interfaces:

• DOMParser
• XMLSerializer

Note that there are some known deviations between this implementation and the W3 specifications.

Note: The latest version of this spec has the status "Editors Draft", since it is under active development. One major change is that the definition of the DOMParser interface has been moved to the HTML spec

The original author claims that xmldom implements [DOM Level 2] in a "fully compatible" way and some parts of [DOM Level 3], but there are not enough tests to prove this. Both Specifications are now superseded by the [DOM Level 4 aka Living standard] wich has a much broader scope than xmldom.

xmldom implements the following interfaces (most constructors are currently not exposed):

• Attr
• CDATASection
• CharacterData
• Comment
• Document
• DocumentFragment
• DocumentType
• DOMException (constructor exposed)
• DOMImplementation (constructor exposed)
• Element
• Entity
• EntityReference
• LiveNodeList
• NamedNodeMap
• Node (constructor exposed)
• NodeList
• Notation
• ProcessingInstruction
• Text

more details are available in the (incomplete) API Reference section.

xmldom does not have any goal of supporting the full spec, but it has some capability to parse, report and serialize things differently when "detecting HTML" (by checking the default namespace). There is an upcoming change to better align the implementation with the latest specs, related to xmldom#203.

xmldom has an own SAX parser implementation to do the actual parsing, which implements some interfaces in alignment with the Java interfaces SAX defines:

• XMLReader
• DOMHandler

There is an idea/proposal to make ti possible to replace it with something else in xmldom#55