The DOMDocument class

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

Introduction

Represents an entire HTML or XML document; serves as the root of the document tree.

Class synopsis

class DOMDocument extends DOMNode implements DOMParentNode {

/* Inherited constants */

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED = 0x1;

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING = 0x2;

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING = 0x4;

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS = 0x8;

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY = 0x10;

public const int DOMNode::DOCUMENT_POSITION_IMPLEMENTATION_SPECIFIC = 0x20;

/* Properties */

public readonly ?DOMDocumentType $doctype;

public readonly DOMImplementation $implementation;

public readonly ?DOMElement $documentElement;

public readonly ?string $actualEncoding;

public ?string $encoding;

public readonly ?string $xmlEncoding;

public bool $standalone;

public bool $xmlStandalone;

public ?string $version;

public ?string $xmlVersion;

public bool $strictErrorChecking;

public ?string $documentURI;

public readonly mixed $config;

public bool $formatOutput;

public bool $validateOnParse;

public bool $resolveExternals;

public bool $preserveWhiteSpace;

public bool $recover;

public bool $substituteEntities;

public readonly ?DOMElement $firstElementChild;

public readonly ?DOMElement $lastElementChild;

public readonly int $childElementCount;

/* Inherited properties */

public readonly string $nodeName;

public ?string $nodeValue;

public readonly int $nodeType;

public readonly ?DOMNode $parentNode;

public readonly ?DOMElement $parentElement;

public readonly DOMNodeList $childNodes;

public readonly ?DOMNode $firstChild;

public readonly ?DOMNode $lastChild;

public readonly ?DOMNode $previousSibling;

public readonly ?DOMNode $nextSibling;

public readonly ?DOMNamedNodeMap $attributes;

public readonly bool $isConnected;

public readonly ?DOMDocument $ownerDocument;

public readonly ?string $namespaceURI;

public string $prefix;

public readonly ?string $localName;

public readonly ?string $baseURI;

public string $textContent;

/* Methods */

public function __construct(string $version = "1.0", string $encoding = "")

public function adoptNode(DOMNode $node): DOMNode|false

public function append(DOMNode|string ...$nodes): void

public function createAttribute(string $localName): DOMAttr|false

public function createAttributeNS(?string $namespace, string $qualifiedName): DOMAttr|false

public function createCDATASection(string $data): DOMCdataSection|false

public function createComment(string $data): DOMComment

public function createDocumentFragment(): DOMDocumentFragment

public function createElement(string $localName, string $value = ""): DOMElement|false

public function createElementNS(?string $namespace, string $qualifiedName, string $value = ""): DOMElement|false

public function createEntityReference(string $name): DOMEntityReference|false

public function createProcessingInstruction(string $target, string $data = ""): DOMProcessingInstruction|false

public function createTextNode(string $data): DOMText

public function getElementById(string $elementId): ?DOMElement

public function getElementsByTagName(string $qualifiedName): DOMNodeList

public function getElementsByTagNameNS(?string $namespace, string $localName): DOMNodeList

public function importNode(DOMNode $node, bool $deep = false): DOMNode|false

public function load(string $filename, int $options = 0): bool

public function loadHTML(string $source, int $options = 0): bool

public function loadHTMLFile(string $filename, int $options = 0): bool

public function loadXML(string $source, int $options = 0): bool

public function normalizeDocument(): void

public function prepend(DOMNode|string ...$nodes): void

public function registerNodeClass(string $baseClass, ?string $extendedClass): true

public function relaxNGValidate(string $filename): bool

public function relaxNGValidateSource(string $source): bool

public function replaceChildren(DOMNode|string ...$nodes): void

public function save(string $filename, int $options = 0): int|false

public function saveHTML(?DOMNode $node = null): string|false

public function saveHTMLFile(string $filename): int|false

public function saveXML(?DOMNode $node = null, int $options = 0): string|false

public function schemaValidate(string $filename, int $flags = 0): bool

public function schemaValidateSource(string $source, int $flags = 0): bool

public function validate(): bool

public function xinclude(int $options = 0): int|false

/* Inherited methods */

public function DOMNode::appendChild(DOMNode $node): DOMNode|false

public function DOMNode::C14N(
    bool $exclusive = false,
    bool $withComments = false,
    ?array $xpath = null,
    ?array $nsPrefixes = null
): string|false

public function DOMNode::C14NFile(
    string $uri,
    bool $exclusive = false,
    bool $withComments = false,
    ?array $xpath = null,
    ?array $nsPrefixes = null
): int|false

public function DOMNode::cloneNode(bool $deep = false): DOMNode|false

public function DOMNode::compareDocumentPosition(DOMNode $other): int

public function DOMNode::contains(DOMNode|DOMNameSpaceNode|null $other): bool

public function DOMNode::getLineNo(): int

public function DOMNode::getNodePath(): ?string

public function DOMNode::getRootNode(?array $options = null): DOMNode

public function DOMNode::hasAttributes(): bool

public function DOMNode::hasChildNodes(): bool

public function DOMNode::insertBefore(DOMNode $node, ?DOMNode $child = null): DOMNode|false

public function DOMNode::isDefaultNamespace(string $namespace): bool

public function DOMNode::isEqualNode(?DOMNode $otherNode): bool

public function DOMNode::isSameNode(DOMNode $otherNode): bool

public function DOMNode::isSupported(string $feature, string $version): bool

public function DOMNode::lookupNamespaceURI(?string $prefix): ?string

public function DOMNode::lookupPrefix(string $namespace): ?string

public function DOMNode::normalize(): void

public function DOMNode::removeChild(DOMNode $child): DOMNode|false

public function DOMNode::replaceChild(DOMNode $node, DOMNode $child): DOMNode|false

public function DOMNode::__sleep(): array

public function DOMNode::__wakeup(): void

}

Properties

actualEncoding: Deprecated as of PHP 8.4.0. Actual encoding of the document, is a readonly equivalent to encoding.
childElementCount: The number of child elements.
config: Deprecated as of PHP 8.4.0. Configuration used when DOMDocument::normalizeDocument() is invoked.
doctype: The Document Type Declaration associated with this document.
documentElement: The DOMElement object that is the first document element. If not found, this evaluates to null.
documentURI: The location of the document or null if undefined.
encoding: Encoding of the document, as specified by the XML declaration. This attribute is not present in the final DOM Level 3 specification, but is the only way of manipulating XML document encoding in this implementation.
firstElementChild: First child element or null.
formatOutput: Nicely formats output with indentation and extra space. This has no effect if the document was loaded with preserveWhitespace enabled.
implementation: The DOMImplementation object that handles this document.
lastElementChild: Last child element or null.
preserveWhiteSpace: Do not remove redundant white space. Default to true. Setting this to false has the same effect as passing LIBXML_NOBLANKS as option to DOMDocument::load() etc.
recover: Proprietary. Enables recovery mode, i.e. trying to parse non-well formed documents. This attribute is not part of the DOM specification and is specific to libxml.
resolveExternals: Set it to true to load external entities from a doctype declaration. This is useful for including character entities in your XML document.
standalone: Deprecated. Whether or not the document is standalone, as specified by the XML declaration, corresponds to xmlStandalone.
strictErrorChecking: Throws DOMException on errors. Default to true.
substituteEntities: Proprietary. Whether or not to substitute entities. This attribute is not part of the DOM specification and is specific to libxml. Default to false.

Caution
Enabling entity substitution may facilitate XML External Entity (XXE) attacks.
validateOnParse: Loads and validates against the DTD. Default to false.

Caution
Enabling validating the DTD may facilitate XML External Entity (XXE) attacks.
version: Deprecated. Version of XML, corresponds to xmlVersion.
xmlEncoding: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the encoding of this document. This is null when unspecified or when it is not known, such as when the Document was created in memory.
xmlStandalone: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, whether this document is standalone. This is false when unspecified. A standalone document is one where there are no external markup declarations. An example of such a markup declaration is when the DTD declares an attribute with a default value.
xmlVersion: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the version number of this document. If there is no declaration and if this document supports the "XML" feature, the value is "1.0".

Changelog

Version	Description
8.4.0	`actualEncoding` and `config` are formally deprecated now.
8.0.0	DOMDocument implements DOMParentNode now.
8.0.0	The unimplemented method DOMDocument::renameNode() has been removed.

Notes

Note:
The DOM extension uses UTF-8 encoding. Use mb_convert_encoding(), UConverter::transcode(), or iconv() to handle other encodings.

Note:
When using json_encode() on a DOMDocument object the result will be that of encoding an empty object.