/*
 * GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Copyright (C) 2006 The Lobo Project
 * 
 * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
 * the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
 * Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option)
 * any later version.
 * 
 * This library 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 the GNU Lesser General Public License for more
 * details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
 * 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
 * 
 * Contact info: xamjadmin@users.sourceforge.net
 */
/*
 * Copyright (c) 2003 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.html2;

import org.w3c.dom.Node;

/**
 * An <code>HTMLCollection</code> is a list of nodes. An individual node may be
 * accessed by either ordinal index or the node's <code>name</code> or
 * <code>id</code> attributes. Collections in the HTML DOM are assumed to be
 * live meaning that they are automatically updated when the underlying document
 * is changed.
 * <p>
 * See also the <a
 * href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-DOM-Level-2-HTML-20030109'>Document
 * Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification</a>.
 */
public interface HTMLCollection {

	/**
	 * This attribute specifies the length or size of the list.
	 */
	public int getLength();

	/**
	 * This method retrieves a node specified by ordinal index. Nodes are
	 * numbered in tree order (depth-first traversal order).
	 * 
	 * @param index
	 *            The index of the node to be fetched. The index origin is
	 *            <code>0</code>.
	 * @return The <code>Node</code> at the corresponding position upon success.
	 *         A value of <code>null</code> is returned if the index is out of
	 *         range.
	 */
	public Node item(int index);

	/**
	 * This method retrieves a <code>Node</code> using a name. With [<a
	 * href='http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224'>HTML 4.01</a>]
	 * documents, it first searches for a <code>Node</code> with a matching
	 * <code>id</code> attribute. If it doesn't find one, it then searches for a
	 * <code>Node</code> with a matching <code>name</code> attribute, but only
	 * on those elements that are allowed a name attribute. With [<a
	 * href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801'>XHTML 1.0</a>]
	 * documents, this method only searches for <code>Nodes</code> with a
	 * matching <code>id</code> attribute. This method is case insensitive in
	 * HTML documents and case sensitive in XHTML documents.
	 * 
	 * @param name
	 *            The name of the <code>Node</code> to be fetched.
	 * @return The <code>Node</code> with a <code>name</code> or <code>id</code>
	 *         attribute whose value corresponds to the specified string. Upon
	 *         failure (e.g., no node with this name exists), returns
	 *         <code>null</code>.
	 */
	public Node namedItem(String name);

}