matlab.io.xml.dom.Element Class

Namespace: matlab.io.xml.dom

Element of XML document

Since R2021a

Description

An object of the matlab.io.xml.dom.Element class represents an XML markup tag.

The matlab.io.xml.dom.Element class is a handle class.

Class Attributes

ConstructOnLoad	true
HandleCompatible	true

For information on class attributes, see Class Attributes.

Creation

Create a matlab.io.xml.dom.Element object by using the createElement or createElementNS method of a matlab.io.xml.dom.Document object.

Properties

Children — Child nodes of this element

1-by-N array of child nodes

Child nodes of this element, specified as a 1-by-N array of matlab.io.xml.dom objects.

Attributes:

GetAccess	public
SetAccess	immutable
NonCopyable	true
Transient	true

TagName — Tag name of element

character vector

Tag name of this element, specified as a character vector.

Attributes:

GetAccess	public
SetAccess	immutable
NonCopyable	true
Transient	true

TextContent — Text content of element

'' (default) | character vector | string scalar

Text content of this element, specified as a character vector or string scalar. This property contains the concatenated textual content of this node and its children.

Attributes:

GetAccess	public
SetAccess	public
NonCopyable	true

HasAttributes — Whether this element has attributes

false (default) | true

Whether this element has attributes, specified as true or false.

Attributes:

GetAccess	public
SetAccess	immutable
NonCopyable	true
Transient	true

Methods

Public Methods

appendChild	childNode = appendChild(thisElem,childNode) appends a node to this Element node and returns the appended node object.
cloneNode	docClone = cloneNode(thisElem,deep) creates and returns a copy of this matlab.io.xml.dom.Element object. If deep is true, the copy is a deep copy. If deep is false, the copy is a shallow copy.
compareDocumentPosition	posEnum = compareDocumentPosition(thisElem,otherNode) returns a double value that encodes the position of a node in the document of this element relative to the position of this element in the document. To decode the returned value, posEnum, use the MATLAB expression bitor(posEnum,POSITION_ENUM) == posEnum, where POSITION_ENUM is one of these Element methods: DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING — The other node follows this element node. DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING — The other node precedes this element node. DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY — This element node contains the other node, which also follows this node. DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS — The other node contains this element node and also precedes this node DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED — The two nodes are disconnected. For example: import matlab.io.xml.dom.* d = Document("root"); root = getDocumentElement(d); para = createElement(d,"para"); appendChild(root,para); pos = compareDocumentPosition(para,root); if bitor(pos,para.DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS) == pos disp("root contains paragraph"); else disp("root does not contain paragraph"); end
getAttribute	val = getAttribute(thisElem,name) returns the value of the attribute with the specified name or an empty character array if the element does not have the specified attribute. Specify name as a character vector or string scalar.
getAttributeNode	attr = getAttributeNode(thisElem,name) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object that represents the element attribute with the specified name. If this element does not have the specified attribute, the method returns an empty Attr object. Specify name as a character vector or string scalar.
getAttributeNodeNS	attr = getAttributeNodeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object that represents the element attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name. If this element does not have the specified attribute, the method returns an empty node object. Specify namespaceURI and lacalNameas a character vector or string scalar.
getAttributeNS	val = getAttributeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName) returns the value of the attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name. If this element does not have the specified attribute, the method returns an empty character array. Specify namespaceURI and localName as a character vector or string scalar.
getAttributes	attrs = getAttributes(thisElem) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.NamedNodeMap object that contains the Attr objects for the attributes of this element.
getBaseURI	name = getBaseURI(thisElem) returns the base URI of this element as a character vector. If the base URI is not known, the method returns an empty character array. The base URI of an element is the URI of the document that owns the element.
getChildElementCount	count = getChildElementCount(thisElem) returns the number of children that are elements or 0 if none of the children are elements.
getChildNodes	nodeList = getChildNodes(thisElem) returns the children of this element as a matlab.io.xml.dom.NodeList object.
getChildren	nodes = getChildren(thisElem) returns a 1-by-N array of objects, such as matlab.io.xml.dom.Element or matlab.io.xml.dom.Text objects, that represent the children of this element.
getElementsByTagName	list = getElementsByTagName(thisElem,name) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.NodeList object that lists the descendant elements of this element that match the specified tag name. Specify name as a character vector or string scalar. To match all tag names, specify "*" or '*'. The NodeList object lists elements in the order that they occur in a traversal of the document tree that contains this element, starting with this element.
getElementsByTagNameNS	list = getElementsByTagNameNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.NodeList object that lists the elements that are descendants of this element and that match the specified namespace URI and local name. To match all namespace URIs and local names, specify "*" or '*'. The NodeList object lists the elements in the order that they occur in a traversal of the document tree that contains this element, starting with this element.
getFirstChild	child = getFirstChild(thisElem) returns the first child of this element.
getFirstElementChild	childElem = getFirstElementChild(thisElem) returns the first child of this element that is an element. If this element does not have child elements, the method returns an empty object.
getLastChild	child = getLastChild(thisElem) returns the last child of this element.
getLastElementChild	childElem = getLastElementChild(thisElem) returns the last child of this element that is an element. If this element does not have child elements, the method returns an empty object.
getLocalName	name = getLocalName(thisElem) returns the local name of this element as a character vector. For example, this method returns 'p' for an element named 'w:p'.
getNamespaceURI	uri = getNamespaceURI(thisElem) returns the namespace URI of this element as a character vector. The method returns an empty character vector if the element does not have a namespace URI.
getNextSibling	getNextSibling(thisElem) returns the node that follows this element in the child list of the parent of this element.
getNextElementSibling	elem = getNextElementSibling(thisElem) returns the element that immediately follows this element in the child list of the parent. If no element follows this element, the method returns an empty object.
getNodeIndex	index = getNodeIndex(thisElem) returns the position of this element relative to the first node in the document in which this element resides. The index count includes attributes.
getNodeName	name = getNodeName(thisElem) returns the tag name of this element. This method provides compatibility with existing MATLAB® code that is based on the W3C XML DOM standard. In new code, use getTagName instead.
getNodeType	type = getNodeType(thisElem) returns the double 1, which indicates that this node is an element. This method provides compatibility with existing MATLAB code that is based on the W3C XML DOM standard. For new MATLAB code, use isa to determine the type of a node. For example: import matlab.io.xml.dom.* d = Document('book'); para = createElement(d,"para"); if isa(para,'matlab.io.xml.dom.Element') fprintf('This is an element.\n'); end
getNodeTypeName	name = getNodeTypeName(thisElem) returns 'ELEMENT_NODE'.
getNodeValue	value = getNodeValue(thisElem) returns the node value of this element. The node value of an element is an empty character array. This method provides compatibility with existing MATLAB code that is based on the W3C XML DOM standard.
getOwnerDocument	doc = getOwnerDocument(thisElem) returns the document that owns this element as a matlab.io.xml.dom.Document object. The owner document is the document that created or imported this element.
getParentNode	parent = getParentNode(thisElem) returns the parent node of this element. If this element does not have a parent, the method returns an empty node.
getPrefix	prefix = getPrefix(thisElem) returns the namespace prefix of this element. For example, this method returns 'w' for an element named 'w:p'. If the element name does not have prefix, this method returns an empty character array.
getPreviousSibling	getPreviousSibling(thisElem) returns the node that precedes this element in the child list of the parent node of this element. If no node precedes this element, the method returns an empty node object
getPreviousElementSibling	elem = getPreviousElementSibling(thisElem) returns the element that immediately precedes this element in the child list of the parent. If no node precedes this element, the method returns an empty node object.
getSchemaTypeInfo	info = getSchemaTypeInfo(thisElem) returns a matlab.io.xml.dom.TypeInfo object that specifies the name, namespace, and derivation of the schema type that defines this element. The TypeInfo object contains type information only if the element contains schema type information. An element contains schema information only if the parser for the document that contains the element is configured to validate the document against a schema and to save post-validation schema information (PSVI) in parsed elements and attributes.
getTagName	name = getTagName(thisElem) returns the name of this element as a character vector. The name corresponds to the name in the XML markup for the element. For example, if this element represents the markup <para>Hello World</para>, this method returns 'para'.
getTextContent	getTextContent(thisElem) returns the text content of this element. If this element has children, this method returns the concatenated text content of the children.
hasAttribute	tf = hasAttribute(thisElem,name) returns true if this element has an attribute with the specified name.
hasAttributeNS	tf = hasAttributeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName) returns true if this element has an attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name.
hasAttributes	tf = hasAttributes(thisElem) returns true if this element has attributes.
hasChildNodes	tf = hasChildNodes(thisElem) returns true if this element has children.
isDefaultNamespace	tf = isDefaultNamespace(thisElem,namespaceURI) returns true if the namespace specified by namespaceURI is the default namespace of this element. A default namespace is an element namespace declared without a prefix. The element and all its children whose names lack a prefix belong to the default namespace. Use setAttributeNS to declare a default namespace for an element. You can use the Document(namespaceURI,qualifiedName) syntax to declare a default namespace for the root element of a document. import matlab.io.xml.dom.* nsURI = "http://my.namespace.org/mybook"; d = Document(nsURI,'book'); book = getDocumentElement(d); if isDefaultNamespace(book,nsURI) fprintf(... '"%s" is the default namespace\n',nsURI); end
isEqualNode	tf = isEqualNode(thisElem,otherNode) returns true if the node specified by otherNode is an element and the values of the following properties of the node are equal to the values of the corresponding properties of this element: tag name prefix local name namespace URI base URI The property values are equal if they have the same length and are character-for-character equal. The node owner document and attribute values do not affect equality. This method tests for equality of nodes, not whether the nodes are handles to the same object. To test for sameness, use the isSameNode method. Nodes that are the same are also equal, but nodes that are equal are not necessarily the same. Normalize documents before testing them for equality because normalization can affect equality.
isSameNode	tf = isSameNode(thisElem,otherNode) returns true if otherNode is the same node as thisElem.
lookupNamespaceURI	uri = lookupNamespaceURI(thisElem,prefix) returns the namespace URI associated with prefix. If the prefix is not associated with a URI, the method returns an empty character array.
lookupPrefix	prefix = lookupPrefix(thisElem,namespaceURI) returns the prefix associated with the specified namespace URI as a character vector. If this element does not associate a prefix with the namespace URI, the method returns an empty character array.
normalize	normalize(thisElem) removes empty text nodes from this element and combines adjacent text nodes into a single text node. Normalization ensures that the element structure is the same as the structure after saving and reloading the document that contains the element.
removeAttribute	removeAttribute(thisElem,name) removes the attribute with the specified name from this element. Specify name as a character vector or string scalar. If the specified attribute has a default value, the method replaces the attribute with an attribute that has the default value and the same name or namespace URI and local name as the replaced attribute.
removeAttributeNode	removeAttributeNode(thisElem,attrObj) removes the attribute specified by attrObj from the element. Specify attrObj as a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object. If the specified attribute has a default value, the method replaces the attribute with an attribute that has the default value and the same name or namespace URI and local name as the replaced attribute.
removeAttributeNS	removeAttributeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName) removes the attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name from this element. If the specified attribute has a default value, the method replaces the attribute with an attribute that has the default value and the same name or namespace URI and local name as the replaced attribute.
removeChild	child = removeChild(thisElem,child) removes the child node specified by child from this element and returns the removed child.
replaceChild	child = replaceChild(thisElem,newChild,oldChild) replaces the child node specified by oldChild with the node specified by newChild and returns newChild. If the new child is a matlab.io.xml.dom.DocumentFragment object, the method replaces the old child with all of the children of the DocumentFragment object and inserts the children in the same order. If the new child is already in the document tree, the method removes the child from the document before it replaces the old child.
setAttribute	setAttribute(thisElem,name,value) adds an attribute with the specified name and value to this element if this element does not already have an attribute with this name. If the element has an attribute with the specified name, the method sets the value of the attribute to the specified value. Specify name and value as character vectors or string scalars. Because the method treats the value as CDATA, the method ignores markup text, including entity references, in the value string. To set an attribute to a value that includes an entity reference, such as &amp;, create a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr node with the value and then use setAttributeNode to add the Attr node to an element.
setAttributeNode	newAttr = setAttributeNode(thisElem,attrNode) adds the specified attribute to this element if the element does not contain an attribute with the same name. If this element already contains an attribute with the same name, the method replaces the existing attribute with the new attribute and returns the replaced attribute. Specify attrNode as a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object. The method returns the new attribute as a matlab.io.dom.xml.Attr object.
setAttributeNodeNS	newAttr = setAttributeNodeNS(thisElem,attrNode) adds an attribute node to this element if the element does not contain an attribute with the same namespace URI and local name. If this element already contains an attribute with the same namespace URI and local name, the method replaces the existing attribute with the new attribute and returns the replaced attribute. Specify attrNode as a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object. The method returns the new attribute as a matlab.io.dom.xml.Attr object.
setAttributeNS	setAttribute(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName,value) adds an attribute with the specified namespace URI, local name, and value to this element if this element does not already contain an attribute with the specified name. If this element already has an attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name, this method sets the value of the existing attribute to the specified value. Specify namespaceURI, localName, and value as character vectors or string scalars. Because the method treats the value as CDATA, the method ignores markup text, including entity references, in the value string. To set an attribute to a value that includes an entity reference, such as &amp;, create a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr node with the value and then use setAttributeNodeNS to add the Attr node to an element.
setIDAttribute	setIDAttribute(thisElem,name,true) declares that the element attribute with the specified name is an ID attribute. setIDAttribute(thisElem,name,false) declares that the element attribute with the specified name is not an ID attribute. Specify name as a character vector or string scalar.
setIDAttributeNode	setIDAttributeNode(thisElem,attrNode,true) declares that the element attribute specified by attrNode is an ID attribute. setIDAttributeNode(thisElem,attrNode,false) declares that the element attribute specified by attrNode is not an ID attribute. Specify attrNode as a matlab.io.xml.dom.Attr object.
setIDAttributeNS	setIDAttributeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName,true) declares that the element attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name is an ID attribute. setIDAttributeNS(thisElem,namespaceURI,localName,false) declares that the element attribute with the specified namespace URI and local name is not an ID attribute. Specify spaceURI and localName as a character vector or string scalar.
setNodeValue	setNodeValue has no effect. This method provides compatibility with existing MATLAB code that is based on the W3C XML DOM standard.
setTextContent	setTextContent(thisElem,textContent) replaces existing nodes in this element with a matlab.io.xml.dom.Text node that contains the specified text. Specify textContent as a character vector or string scalar.

Examples

Create XML Elements and Text Nodes

This example creates matlab.io.xml.dom.Element and matlab.io.xml.dom.Text objects to represent XML markup for weekdays.

Import the matlab.io.xml.dom package so that you do not have to use long, fully qualified class names.

import matlab.io.xml.dom.*

Create a document and the root element weekdays.

doc = Document("weekdays");
weekdaysElement = getDocumentElement(doc);

Create a string array of the text for each weekday.

weekdays = ["Mon" "Tue" "Wed" "Thu" "Fri"];

For each weekday, create an Element object for the day element and a Text object for the day text. Append the Text object to the day element and the day element to the weekdays element.

for i=1:5
    dayElement = createElement(doc,"day");
    appendChild(dayElement,createTextNode(doc,weekdays(i)));
    appendChild(weekdaysElement,dayElement);
end

Write the XML to a file.

xmlFileName = "weekdays.xml";
writer = matlab.io.xml.dom.DOMWriter;
writeToFile(writer,doc,xmlFileName);

Version History

Introduced in R2021a