What s the difference between an element and a node in XML

Question

I m working in Java with XML and I m wondering  what s the difference between an element and a node

User · Answer

Different W3C specifications define different sets of "Node" types.

Thus, the DOM spec defines the following types of nodes:

Document -- Element (maximum of one), ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
DocumentFragment -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
DocumentType -- no children
EntityReference -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Element -- Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
Attr -- Text, EntityReference
ProcessingInstruction -- no children
Comment -- no children
Text -- no children
CDATASection -- no children
Entity -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Notation -- no children

The XML Infoset (used by XPath) has a smaller set of nodes:

The Document Information Item

Element Information Items

Attribute Information Items

Processing Instruction Information Items

Unexpanded Entity Reference Information Items

Character Information Items

Comment Information Items

The Document Type Declaration Information Item

Unparsed Entity Information Items

Notation Information Items

Namespace Information Items

XPath has the following Node types:

root nodes
element nodes
text nodes
attribute nodes
namespace nodes
processing instruction nodes
comment nodes

The answer to your question "What is the difference between an element and a node" is:

An element is a type of node. Many other types of nodes exist and serve different purposes.

User · Answer

As described in the various XML specifications  an element is that which consists of a start tag  and end tag  and the content in between  or alternately an empty element tag  which has no content or end tag   In other words  these are all elements    lt foo gt  stuff  lt  foo gt   lt foo bar  baz  gt  lt  foo gt   lt foo baz  qux    gt    Though you hear  node  used with roughly the same meaning  it has no precise definition per XML specs  It s usually used to refer to nodes of things like DOMs  which may be closely related to XML or use XML for their representation

User · Answer

The Node object is the primary data type for the entire DOM   A node can be an element node  an attribute node  a text node  or any other of the node types explained in the  Node types  chapter   An XML element is everything from  including  the element s start tag to  including  the element s end tag

User · Answer

XML Element is a XML Node but with additional elements like attributes    lt a gt Lorem Ipsum lt  a gt     This is a node   lt a id  sample  gt Lorem Ipsum lt  a gt     This is an element

User · Answer

An xml document is made of nested elements  An element begins at its opening tag and ends at its closing tag  You re probably seen  lt body gt  and  lt  body gt  in html  Everything between the opening and closing tags is the element s content  If an element is defined by a self-closing tag  eg   lt br  gt   then its content is empty   Opening tags can also specify attributes  eg   lt p class  rant  gt   In this example the attribute name is  class  and its value  rant    The XML language has no such thing as a  node   Read the spec  the word doesn t occur   Some people use the word  node  informally to mean element  which is confusing because some parsers also give the word a technical meaning  identifying  text nodes  and  element nodes    The exact meaning depends on the parser  so the word is ill-defined unless you state what parser you are using  If you mean element  say  element

User · Answer

An element is a type of node as are attributes  text etc

User · Answer

Now i know  the element is one of node  All node types in here http   www w3schools com dom dom nodetype asp   Element is between the start tag and end in the end tag  So text node is a node   but not a element

User · Answer

Element is the only kind of node that can have child nodes and attributes   Document also has child nodes  BUT no attributes  no text  exactly one child element

User · Answer

Different W3C specifications define different sets of "Node" types.

Thus, the DOM spec defines the following types of nodes:

Document -- Element (maximum of one), ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
DocumentFragment -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
DocumentType -- no children
EntityReference -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Element -- Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
Attr -- Text, EntityReference
ProcessingInstruction -- no children
Comment -- no children
Text -- no children
CDATASection -- no children
Entity -- Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
Notation -- no children

The XML Infoset (used by XPath) has a smaller set of nodes:

The Document Information Item

Element Information Items

Attribute Information Items

Processing Instruction Information Items

Unexpanded Entity Reference Information Items

Character Information Items

Comment Information Items

The Document Type Declaration Information Item

Unparsed Entity Information Items

Notation Information Items

Namespace Information Items

XPath has the following Node types:

root nodes
element nodes
text nodes
attribute nodes
namespace nodes
processing instruction nodes
comment nodes

The answer to your question "What is the difference between an element and a node" is:

An element is a type of node. Many other types of nodes exist and serve different purposes.

User · Answer

A node is the base class for both elements and attributes  and basically all other XML representations too

User · Answer

A Node is a part of the DOM tree  an Element is a particular type of Node  e g        lt foo gt  This is Text  lt  foo gt   You have a foo Element   which is also a Node  as Element inherits from Node  and a Text Node  This is Text   that is a child of the foo Element Node

User · Answer

node  amp  element are same  Every element is a node   but it s not that every node must be an element

User · Answer

A node can be a number of different kinds of things  some text  a comment  an element  an entity  etc  An element is a particular kind of node

User · Answer

A node is defined as      the smallest unit of a valid  complete structure in a document    or as      An object in the tree view that serves as a container to hold related objects    Now their are many different kinds of nodes as an elements node  an attribute node etc

[xml] What's the difference between an element and a node in XML?

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