What is the Document Object Model?
DOM is a platform and language-independent interface to allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and alter the content, structure and styles of Web documents. The W3C released the DOM Level 1 Specification in Oct'98.
What else is DOM?
- DOM keeps track
of all the document info, browser properties, page URL and HTML elements,
exposing them to scripting.
- A set of objects
for representing HTML and XML documents
- A standard model
for how these objects can be combined
- A standard interface
for accessing and manipulating them
- The DOM spec
is divided into three main parts:
- DOM Core
A low-level set of objects that can represent any document structure.
A minimal and compact design for object manipulation
- DOM HTML
and XML
A high-level (user) interface to document objects.
Objects and methods for more direct access to specific types of documents.
- DOM Core
- As of Fall'98,
Netscape's 4.5 DOM implementation is much more limited that MSIE 4.1
DOM implementation.
- W3C DOM Specification