The Object's Properties

The Document Object Model provides a set of properties that you can use to navigate, access, and update the document tree with. The following table shows the read-only properties:

DOM's Property	Returns	Comments
firstChild	The first child node.	An [object]. All children are included in childNodes collection.
lastChild	The last child node.	An [object]. All children are included in childNodes collection.
nextSibling	The next child of the node's parent.	An [object].
nodeName	The HTML Tag.	Examples: P, FONT, UL.
nodeType	Whether the node is a tag, text, or attribute.	Returns 1 for tag, 2 for attribute, and 3 for text.
parentNode	A reference to the parent node.	An [object].
previousSibling	A reference to the previous child of the node's parent.	An [object].
specified	Whether an attribute value is set.	Boolean

The following table shows the read-write properties:

DOM's Property	Returns	Comments
data	The value of a text node.	A string. Returns undefined for all other nodes. Can be set as well.
nodeValue	The value of a text node.	A string. Returns null for all other nodes. Can be set as well.

And finally, here are the collections defined for the DOM:

DOM's Property	Returns	Comments
attributes	A collection of the node's attributes.	Access by name. Example:attributes.id.
childNodes	A collection of the node's children.	Access by index. Example:childNodes[2].