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.
This document is a version of the DOM Level 1 Recommendation incorporating the errata changes as of September 29, 2000. It is released by the DOM Working Group as a W3C Working Draft to gather public feedback before its final release as the DOM Level 1 second edition W3C Recommendation (as these changes are editorials, there will be no Candidate Recommendation or Proposed Recommendation stages). The review period for this Working Draft is 4 weeks ending October 27 2000.
This second edition is not a new version of the DOM Level 1; it merely incorporates the changes dictated by the first-edition errata list. This document should not be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document.
This document has been produced as part of the W3C DOM Activity. The authors of this document are the DOM WG members. Different modules of the Document Object Model have different editors.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.