Name
XML.firstChild Property — a reference to the first descendant of a node
Availability
Flash 5
Synopsis
theNode.firstChild
Access
Read-only
Description
The firstChild
property is synonymous with
childNodes[0]
. It returns a reference to the first
node object that descends from theNode
. If
theNode
has no children,
firstChild
returns null
.
In this XML source fragment, the firstChild
of the
MESSAGE
node is the text node with the
nodeValue
“hey”:
<!-- Fragment 1 --> <MESSAGE>hey</MESSAGE>
Here, the firstChild
of the
HOTEL
node is the ROOM
node:
<!-- Fragment 2 --> <HOTEL><ROOM><SIZE>Double</SIZE></ROOM></HOTEL>
When theNode
is the top of the object
hierarchy (i.e., refers to the XML
document
object), firstChild
may not always be a reference
to the first useful element in the document. If a document includes
an XML delcaration (<?xml
version="1.0"?>
) and perhaps a
DOCTYPE
tag, there are normally whitespace nodes
before the actual root element of the XML hierarchy. However, if an
XML fragment has no XML declaration and no
DOCTYPE
, we can start processing it with the
document’s firstChild
node, as in:
// Create a new XML fragment myDoc = new XML('<MESSAGE><USER>gray</USER><CONTENT>hi</CONTENT></MESSAGE>'); // Store the XML fragment's first node in the variable msg msg = myDoc.firstChild; // Assign the text contained by the USER tag // to a text field called userNameOutput userNameOutput = msg.firstChild.firstChild.nodeValue;
It’s good form, but not actually necessary, to use
nodeValue
to access the ...
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