CDATASection

public interface CDATASection
implements Text

org.w3c.dom.CDATASection

CDATA sections are used to escape blocks of text containing characters that would otherwise be regarded as markup. The only delimiter that is recognized in a CDATA section is the "]]>" string that ends the CDATA section. CDATA sections cannot be nested. Their primary purpose is for including material such as XML fragments, without needing to escape all the delimiters.

The CharacterData.data attribute holds the text that is contained by the CDATA section. Note that this may contain characters that need to be escaped outside of CDATA sections and that, depending on the character encoding ("charset") chosen for serialization, it may be impossible to write out some characters as part of a CDATA section.

The CDATASection interface inherits from the CharacterData interface through the Text interface. Adjacent CDATASection nodes are not merged by use of the normalize method of the Node interface.

No lexical check is done on the content of a CDATA section and it is therefore possible to have the character sequence "]]>" in the content, which is illegal in a CDATA section per section 2.7 of [XML 1.0]. The presence of this character sequence must generate a fatal error during serialization or the cdata section must be splitted before the serialization (see also the parameter "split-cdata-sections" in the DOMConfiguration interface).

Note: Because no markup is recognized within a CDATASection, character numeric references cannot be used as an escape mechanism when serializing. Therefore, action needs to be taken when serializing a CDATASection with a character encoding where some of the contained characters cannot be represented. Failure to do so would not produce well-formed XML.

Note: One potential solution in the serialization process is to end the CDATA section before the character, output the character using a character reference or entity reference, and open a new CDATA section for any further characters in the text node. Note, however, that some code conversion libraries at the time of writing do not return an error or exception when a character is missing from the encoding, making the task of ensuring that data is not corrupted on serialization more difficult.

Summary

Inherited constants

From interface org.w3c.dom.Node

`short`	`ATTRIBUTE_NODE` The node is an `Attr`.
`short`	`CDATA_SECTION_NODE` The node is a `CDATASection`.
`short`	`COMMENT_NODE` The node is a `Comment`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE` The node is a `DocumentFragment`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_NODE` The node is a `Document`.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINED_BY` The node is contained by the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_CONTAINS` The node contains the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_DISCONNECTED` The two nodes are disconnected.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_FOLLOWING` The node follows the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_IMPLEMENTATION_SPECIFIC` The determination of preceding versus following is implementation-specific.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_POSITION_PRECEDING` The second node precedes the reference node.
`short`	`DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE` The node is a `DocumentType`.
`short`	`ELEMENT_NODE` The node is an `Element`.
`short`	`ENTITY_NODE` The node is an `Entity`.
`short`	`ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE` The node is an `EntityReference`.
`short`	`NOTATION_NODE` The node is a `Notation`.
`short`	`PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE` The node is a `ProcessingInstruction`.
`short`	`TEXT_NODE` The node is a `Text` node.

Inherited methods

From interface


        
          org.w3c.dom.Text

`abstract String`	`getWholeText()` Returns all text of `Text` nodes logically-adjacent text nodes to this node, concatenated in document order.
`abstract boolean`	`isElementContentWhitespace()` Returns whether this text node contains element content whitespace, often abusively called "ignorable whitespace".
`abstract Text`	`replaceWholeText(String content)` Replaces the text of the current node and all logically-adjacent text nodes with the specified text.
`abstract Text`	`splitText(int offset)` Breaks this node into two nodes at the specified `offset`, keeping both in the tree as siblings.

From interface


        
          org.w3c.dom.CharacterData

`abstract void`	`appendData(String arg)` Append the string to the end of the character data of the node.
`abstract void`	`deleteData(int offset, int count)` Remove a range of 16-bit units from the node.
`abstract String`	`getData()` The character data of the node that implements this interface.
`abstract int`	`getLength()` The number of 16-bit units that are available through `data` and the `substringData` method below.
`abstract void`	`insertData(int offset, String arg)` Insert a string at the specified 16-bit unit offset.
`abstract void`	`replaceData(int offset, int count, String arg)` Replace the characters starting at the specified 16-bit unit offset with the specified string.
`abstract void`	`setData(String data)` The character data of the node that implements this interface.
`abstract String`	`substringData(int offset, int count)` Extracts a range of data from the node.

From interface


        
          org.w3c.dom.Node

`abstract Node`	`appendChild(Node newChild)` Adds the node `newChild` to the end of the list of children of this node.
`abstract Node`	`cloneNode(boolean deep)` Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for nodes.
`abstract short`	`compareDocumentPosition(Node other)` Compares the reference node, i.e.
`abstract NamedNodeMap`	`getAttributes()` A `NamedNodeMap` containing the attributes of this node (if it is an `Element`) or `null` otherwise.
`abstract String`	`getBaseURI()` The absolute base URI of this node or `null` if the implementation wasn't able to obtain an absolute URI.
`abstract NodeList`	`getChildNodes()` A `NodeList` that contains all children of this node.
`abstract Object`	`getFeature(String feature, String version)` This method returns a specialized object which implements the specialized APIs of the specified feature and version, as specified in .
`abstract Node`	`getFirstChild()` The first child of this node.
`abstract Node`	`getLastChild()` The last child of this node.
`abstract String`	`getLocalName()` Returns the local part of the qualified name of this node.
`abstract String`	`getNamespaceURI()` The namespace URI of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified (see ).
`abstract Node`	`getNextSibling()` The node immediately following this node.
`abstract String`	`getNodeName()` The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract short`	`getNodeType()` A code representing the type of the underlying object, as defined above.
`abstract String`	`getNodeValue()` The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract Document`	`getOwnerDocument()` The `Document` object associated with this node.
`abstract Node`	`getParentNode()` The parent of this node.
`abstract String`	`getPrefix()` The namespace prefix of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified.
`abstract Node`	`getPreviousSibling()` The node immediately preceding this node.
`abstract String`	`getTextContent()` This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
`abstract Object`	`getUserData(String key)` Retrieves the object associated to a key on a this node.
`abstract boolean`	`hasAttributes()` Returns whether this node (if it is an element) has any attributes.
`abstract boolean`	`hasChildNodes()` Returns whether this node has any children.
`abstract Node`	`insertBefore(Node newChild, Node refChild)` Inserts the node `newChild` before the existing child node `refChild`.
`abstract boolean`	`isDefaultNamespace(String namespaceURI)` This method checks if the specified `namespaceURI` is the default namespace or not.
`abstract boolean`	`isEqualNode(Node arg)` Tests whether two nodes are equal.
`abstract boolean`	`isSameNode(Node other)` Returns whether this node is the same node as the given one.
`abstract boolean`	`isSupported(String feature, String version)` Tests whether the DOM implementation implements a specific feature and that feature is supported by this node, as specified in .
`abstract String`	`lookupNamespaceURI(String prefix)` Look up the namespace URI associated to the given prefix, starting from this node.
`abstract String`	`lookupPrefix(String namespaceURI)` Look up the prefix associated to the given namespace URI, starting from this node.
`abstract void`	`normalize()` Puts all `Text` nodes in the full depth of the sub-tree underneath this `Node`, including attribute nodes, into a "normal" form where only structure (e.g., elements, comments, processing instructions, CDATA sections, and entity references) separates `Text` nodes, i.e., there are neither adjacent `Text` nodes nor empty `Text` nodes.
`abstract Node`	`removeChild(Node oldChild)` Removes the child node indicated by `oldChild` from the list of children, and returns it.
`abstract Node`	`replaceChild(Node newChild, Node oldChild)` Replaces the child node `oldChild` with `newChild` in the list of children, and returns the `oldChild` node.
`abstract void`	`setNodeValue(String nodeValue)` The value of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.
`abstract void`	`setPrefix(String prefix)` The namespace prefix of this node, or `null` if it is unspecified.
`abstract void`	`setTextContent(String textContent)` This attribute returns the text content of this node and its descendants.
`abstract Object`	`setUserData(String key, Object data, UserDataHandler handler)` Associate an object to a key on this node.