XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Name

setAttribute: name, value

Synopsis

Sets the attribute specified by the name parameter to the DOMString passed in the value argument. The string is not parsed for entity references and is set as a Text node child of the corresponding member of the attributes collection. If an attribute with the given name already exists, the value is set to the value argument.

Arguments

name: DOMString

The attribute name to set or modify.

value: DOMString

The new attribute value.

Exceptions

INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR

Indicates that the attribute name you passed in doesn’t represent a valid XML attribute name.

NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR

Raised if the element is read-only.

Java binding

public void setAttribute(String name, String value) throws DOMException;

Java example

// Check for the name attribute
if (elem.getAttribute("name") =  = "") {
    // oh well, set a reasonable default
    elem.setAttribute("name", elem.getTagName( ));
}