An Attr object represents an attribute of an Element node. Attr objects are associated with Element nodes, but are not directly part of the document tree: the getParentNode( ) method of an Attr object always returns null. Use getOwnerElement( ) to deterine which Element an Attr is part of. You can obtain an Attr object by calling the getAttributeNode( ) method of Element, or you can obtain a NamedNodeMap of all Attr objects for an element with the getAttributes( ) method of Node.

getName( ) returns the name of the attribute. getValue( ) returns the attribute value as a string. getSpecified( ) returns TRue if the attribute was explicitly specified in the source document through a call to setValue( ), and returns false if the attribute represents a default obtained from a DTD or other schema.

XML allows attributes to contain text and entity references. The getValue( ) method returns the attribute value as a single string. If you want to know the precise composition of the attribute however, you can examine the children of the Attr node: they may consist of Text and/or EntityReference nodes.

In most cases the easiest way to work with attributes is with the getAttribute( ) and setAttribute( ) methods of the Element interface. These methods avoid the use of Attr nodes altogether.

Figure 21-1. org.w3c.dom.Attr

public interface Attr extends Node {
// Public Instance Methods
     String getName( );  
     Element getOwnerElement( );  
5.0  TypeInfo getSchemaTypeInfo( );  
     boolean getSpecified( );  
     String getValue( );  
5.0  boolean isId( );  
     void setValue(String value) throws DOMException;  
}

Passed To

Element.{removeAttributeNode( ), setAttributeNode( ), setAttributeNodeNS( ), setIdAttributeNode( )}

Returned By

Document.{createAttribute( ), createAttributeNS( )}, Element.{getAttributeNode( ), getAttributeNodeNS( ), removeAttributeNode( ), setAttributeNode( ), setAttributeNodeNS( )}