/*
* Copyright (c) 2000 World Wide Web Consortium,
* (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de
* Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All
* Rights Reserved. This program is distributed under the W3C's Software
* Intellectual Property License. This program is distributed in the
* hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
* the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE.
* See W3C License http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ for more details.
*/
package org.w3c.dom;
/**
* The <code>Attr</code> interface represents an attribute in an
* <code>Element</code> object. Typically the allowable values for the
* attribute are defined in a document type definition.
* <p><code>Attr</code> objects inherit the <code>Node</code> interface, but
* since they are not actually child nodes of the element they describe, the
* DOM does not consider them part of the document tree. Thus, the
* <code>Node</code> attributes <code>parentNode</code>,
* <code>previousSibling</code>, and <code>nextSibling</code> have a
* <code>null</code> value for <code>Attr</code> objects. The DOM takes the
* view that attributes are properties of elements rather than having a
* separate identity from the elements they are associated with; this should
* make it more efficient to implement such features as default attributes
* associated with all elements of a given type. Furthermore,
* <code>Attr</code> nodes may not be immediate children of a
* <code>DocumentFragment</code>. However, they can be associated with
* <code>Element</code> nodes contained within a
* <code>DocumentFragment</code>. In short, users and implementors of the
* DOM need to be aware that <code>Attr</code> nodes have some things in
* common with other objects inheriting the <code>Node</code> interface, but
* they also are quite distinct.
* <p>The attribute's effective value is determined as follows: if this
* attribute has been explicitly assigned any value, that value is the
* attribute's effective value; otherwise, if there is a declaration for
* this attribute, and that declaration includes a default value, then that
* default value is the attribute's effective value; otherwise, the
* attribute does not exist on this element in the structure model until it
* has been explicitly added. Note that the <code>nodeValue</code> attribute
* on the <code>Attr</code> instance can also be used to retrieve the string
* version of the attribute's value(s).
* <p>In XML, where the value of an attribute can contain entity references,
* the child nodes of the <code>Attr</code> node may be either
* <code>Text</code> or <code>EntityReference</code> nodes (when these are
* in use; see the description of <code>EntityReference</code> for
* discussion). Because the DOM Core is not aware of attribute types, it
* treats all attribute values as simple strings, even if the DTD or schema
* declares them as having tokenized types.
* <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification</a>.
*/
public interface Attr extends Node {
/**
* Returns the name of this attribute.
*/
public String getName();
/**
* If this attribute was explicitly given a value in the original
* document, this is <code>true</code>; otherwise, it is
* <code>false</code>. Note that the implementation is in charge of this
* attribute, not the user. If the user changes the value of the
* attribute (even if it ends up having the same value as the default
* value) then the <code>specified</code> flag is automatically flipped
* to <code>true</code>. To re-specify the attribute as the default
* value from the DTD, the user must delete the attribute. The
* implementation will then make a new attribute available with
* <code>specified</code> set to <code>false</code> and the default
* value (if one exists).
* <br>In summary: If the attribute has an assigned value in the document
* then <code>specified</code> is <code>true</code>, and the value is
* the assigned value.If the attribute has no assigned value in the
* document and has a default value in the DTD, then
* <code>specified</code> is <code>false</code>, and the value is the
* default value in the DTD.If the attribute has no assigned value in
* the document and has a value of #IMPLIED in the DTD, then the
* attribute does not appear in the structure model of the document.If
* the <code>ownerElement</code> attribute is <code>null</code> (i.e.
* because it was just created or was set to <code>null</code> by the
* various removal and cloning operations) <code>specified</code> is
* <code>true</code>.
*/
public boolean getSpecified();
/**
* On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string.
* Character and general entity references are replaced with their
* values. See also the method <code>getAttribute</code> on the
* <code>Element</code> interface.
* <br>On setting, this creates a <code>Text</code> node with the unparsed
* contents of the string. I.e. any characters that an XML processor
* would recognize as markup are instead treated as literal text. See
* also the method <code>setAttribute</code> on the <code>Element</code>
* interface.
* @exception org.w3c.dom.DOMException
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.
*/
public String getValue();
/**
* On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string.
* Character and general entity references are replaced with their
* values. See also the method <code>getAttribute</code> on the
* <code>Element</code> interface.
* <br>On setting, this creates a <code>Text</code> node with the unparsed
* contents of the string. I.e. any characters that an XML processor
* would recognize as markup are instead treated as literal text. See
* also the method <code>setAttribute</code> on the <code>Element</code>
* interface.
* @exception org.w3c.dom.DOMException
* NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.
*/
public void setValue(String value)
throws DOMException;
/**
* The <code>Element</code> node this attribute is attached to or
* <code>null</code> if this attribute is not in use.
* @since DOM Level 2
*/
public Element getOwnerElement();
}