October 24, 2000 - Printing the DOM

Yehuda Shiran October 24, 2000
Printing the DOM
Tips: October 2000

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

In order to understand Internet Explorer's DOM (Document Object Model) of a document, it's not enough to examine the source HTML. You need a utility that will parse the HTML file and report the DOM of the document. One such utility is the createTextRange() method. This method creates a textRange object that you can, among other operations, print. The following printRange() function prints the textRange object of the current tip's document:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript">
<!--
function printRange() {
  var range = document.body.createTextRange();
  if (range!=null) {
    alert(range.htmlText);
  }
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>

Try it out. Examine the TABLE's tags. You can see the TBODY tag that is enclosing the table's content. The TBODY tag is part of the DOM, although it is not part of the HTML source.

Learn more about the DOM in Columns 40, The DOM, Part I: Analysis, through Column 47, A DOM-Based Snakes Game, Part II.