Node Types

When working with the Document Object Model (DOM), you will encounter various types of nodes that make up the structure of a webpage. Each type of node plays a unique role within the DOM and offers different functionality.

Common Node Types

The DOM consists of several types of nodes. The most commonly used ones are:

  1. Document Node: The root node of the HTML document. It represents the entire document and it's typically interacted with using the document object.
  2. Element Nodes: These are the most commonly used nodes and represent each HTML element on the page, such as <body>, <div>, <p>, and so on. Element nodes can have attributes and can contain other element nodes, text nodes, and comments. They can be selected and manipulated using various DOM methods.
  3. Text Nodes: These nodes contain the actual text content within an element node. Any text you see on a webpage, even the whitespace and line breaks, are stored in text nodes.
  4. Attribute Nodes: These nodes contain the values of HTML attributes. Attribute nodes are accessed and manipulated via their parent element nodes.
  5. Comment Nodes: These nodes represent HTML comments (<!-- comment -->) in the document.

It's important to note that in the DOM, everything is a node and these nodes are organized in a tree-like structure. This structure enables JavaScript to access and update the content of a webpage.