DOM - Document Object Model
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DOM accesses the structure of an XML document.
Sample Code
This example uses DOM to read from an XML document.
Dim xmlDoc As New MSXML2.DOMDocument
Dim ElementName As String
Dim ElementValue As String
xmlDoc.Load("c:\XML_Folder\inventory.xml")
ElementName = xmlDoc.documentElement.firstChild.baseName
ElementValue = xmlDoc.documentElement.firstChild.text
DOM Elements
| PERSON or //PERSON |
Any element named "PERSON" |
| /PEOPLE |
Elements named "BOOK" that are children of the root node. |
| PERSON/NAME |
Elements named "NAME" that are children of the element named "PERSON". |
| /PEOPLE/PERSON |
Elements named "PEOPLE" that are children of the element named "PEOPLE" which is a child of the root element. |
| PEOPLE//NAME |
Elements named "NAME" that have the element "PEOPLE" as an ancestor. |
| PEOPLE/*/NAME |
Elements named "NAME" that have the element "PEOPLE" as an grandparent (Parent of its parent). |
| PERSON[NAME] |
Elements named "PERSON" that have a child the element named "NAME". |
XPATH Nodes
ROOT Node
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The ROOT node contains the entire XML document.
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In XPATH, the ROOT node is designated as a slash /.
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The ROOT node does not have a PARENT node.
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The ROOT node has child nodes. One is the document element.
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The ROOT node can also have comments and processing instructions as child elements.
ELEMENT Nodes
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There is an xpath ELEMENT for every element in the XML document.
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An ELEMENT nodes children include:
- text nodes
- element nodes
- comment nodes
- processing instructions
- text nodes