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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html lang=en-US>
<head><meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<title>Selectors API Level 1</title>
<style type="text/css">
pre.idl { border:solid thin; background:#eee; color:#000; padding:0.5em }
pre.idl :link, pre.idl :visited { color:inherit; background:transparent }
div.example { border-left:double; padding-left:1em }
dfn { font-style:normal; font-weight:bolder }
em.ct { font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; font-variant:small-caps }
p.note { margin-left:2em; color:green; font-style:italic; font-weight:bold }
p.note:before { content:"Note: " }
.issue { padding:.5em; border:solid red }
.issue:before { content:"Issue: " }
code { color:#FF4500; }
code :link, code :visited { color:inherit }
</style>
<link href="http://www.w3.org/StyleSheets/TR/W3C-CR" rel=stylesheet type="text/css">
<body>
<div class=head>
<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/"><img alt=W3C height=48
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_home" width=72></a></p>
<h1 id=title>Selectors API Level 1</h1>
<!-- "DOM Selectors" was not acceptable. "DOM Level 4 Selectors" and
conforming to the DOM specification template (if there is such a thing) is
just silly so we got stuck with this weird name. -->
<h2 class="no-num no-toc" id=W3C-doctype>W3C Candidate Recommendation 22
December 2009</h2>
<dl>
<dt>This Version:
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-selectors-api-20091222/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-selectors-api-20091222/</a>
<dt>Latest Version:
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/">http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/</a>
<dt>Previous Versions:
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-selectors-api-20081114/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-selectors-api-20081114/</a>
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-selectors-api-20071221/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-selectors-api-20071221/</a>
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-selectors-api-20071019/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-selectors-api-20071019/</a>
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060926/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060926/</a>
<dd><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060525/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060525/</a>
<dt>Editors:
<dd><a href="http://annevankesteren.nl/">Anne van Kesteren</a> (<a
href="http://www.opera.com/">Opera Software ASA</a>) &lt;<a
href="mailto:annevk@opera.com">annevk@opera.com</a>&gt;
<dd><a href="http://lachy.id.au/">Lachlan Hunt</a> (<a
href="http://www.opera.com/">Opera Software ASA</a>) &lt;<a
href="mailto:lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au">lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</a>&gt;
</dl>
<p class=copyright><a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright">Copyright</a>
© 2006-2009 <a href="http://www.w3.org/"><acronym title="World Wide Web
Consortium">W3C</acronym></a><sup>®</sup> (<a
href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/"><acronym title="Massachusetts Institute
of Technology">MIT</acronym></a>, <a
href="http://www.ercim.org/"><acronym title="European Research Consortium
for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</acronym></a>, <a
href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</a>), All Rights Reserved. W3C <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</a>,
<a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</a>
and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents">document
use</a> rules apply.</p>
</div>
<hr>
<h2 class="no-num no-toc" id=abstract>Abstract</h2>
<p>Selectors, which are widely used in CSS, are patterns that match against
elements in a tree structure <a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a><a href="#CSS21"
rel=biblioentry>[CSS21]<!--{{CSS21}}--></a>. The Selectors API
specification defines methods for retrieving <code>Element</code> nodes
from the <abbr title="Document Object Model">DOM</abbr> by matching
against a group of selectors. It is often desirable to perform DOM
operations on a specific set of elements in a document. These methods
simplify the process of acquiring specific elements, especially compared
with the more verbose techniques defined and used in the past.
<h2 class="no-num no-toc" id=sotd>Status of this Document</h2>
<p><em>This section describes the status of this document at the time of
its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of
current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report
can be found in the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/">W3C technical reports
index</a> at http://www.w3.org/TR/.</em>
<p>This is the 22 December 2009 Candidate Recommendation of Selectors API.
W3C publishes a Candidate Recommendation to indicate that the document is
believed to be stable and to encourage implementation by the developer
community. The <a href="http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/">Web Applications
(WebApps) Working Group</a> expects to request that the Director advance
this document to Proposed Recommendation once the Working Group has
developed a comprehensive <a
href="http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/selectors-api-testsuite/">Selectors
API test suite</a>, and demonstrated that at least two complete
implementations exist which pass the Test Suite.
<p>There are several known implementations believed to be complete and
interoperable (or on the point of being so) and the WebApps Working Group
expects to develop a test suite and use it to show that that these
implementations pass early in 2010. The Working Group does not plan to
request to advance to Proposed Recommendation prior to 30 April 2010.
There is no formal implementation report available at the present time.
<p>The Last Call Working Draft for this specification resulted in a number
of Last Call comments which have all been addressed by the Working Group,
a list of which can be found in the <a
href="http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/selectors-api/disposition-of-comments">Disposition
of Comments</a>.
<p>The W3C Membership and other interested parties are invited to implement
this specification and send comments on their experience to <a
href="mailto:public-webapps@w3.org">public-webapps@w3.org</a> (<a
href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/">public
archive</a>) with <kbd>[selectors-api]</kbd> in the subject, through 30
April 2010. (Please note that a different list was used until mid 2008, so
some old messages are <a
href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapi/">archived there
instead</a>). The editor’s copy of this specification is <a
href="http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/selectors-api/">available in W3C
CVS</a>. A detailed list of changes is also available <a
href="http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2006/webapi/selectors-api/">from the CVS
server</a>.
<p>This document was developed by the <a
href="http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/">Web Applications Working Group</a>.
The Working Group expects to advance this Working Draft to Recommendation
Status.
<p>Publication as a Candidate Recommendation does not imply endorsement by
the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced
or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite
this document as other than work in progress.
<p>This document was produced by a group operating under the <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/">5 February
2004 W3C Patent Policy</a>. W3C maintains a <a
href="http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/42538/status"
rel=disclosure>public list of any patent disclosures</a> made in
connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes
instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual
knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#def-essential">Essential
Claim(s)</a> must disclose the information in accordance with <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-Disclosure">section
6 of the W3C Patent Policy</a>.
<h2 class="no-num no-toc" id=toc>Table of Contents</h2>
<!--begin-toc-->
<ul class=toc>
<li><a href="#introduction"><span class=secno>1. </span>Introduction</a>
<ul class=toc>
<li><a href="#examples"><span class=secno>1.1. </span>Examples</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#conformance"><span class=secno>2. </span>Conformance
Requirements</a>
<ul class=toc>
<li><a href="#terminology"><span class=secno>2.1. </span>Terminology and
Conventions</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#interoperability"><span class=secno>3.
</span>Interoperability Considerations</a>
<ul class=toc>
<li><a href="#extensibility"><span class=secno>3.1.
</span>Extensibility</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#security"><span class=secno>4. </span>Security
Considerations</a>
<li><a href="#privacy"><span class=secno>5. </span>Privacy Considerations
</a>
<li><a href="#the-apis"><span class=secno>6. </span>The APIs</a>
<ul class=toc>
<li><a href="#nodeselector"><span class=secno>6.1. </span>The <code
title="">NodeSelector</code> Interface</a>
<li><a href="#processing-selectors"><span class=secno>6.2.
</span>Processing Selectors</a>
<li><a href="#resolving-namespaces"><span class=secno>6.3.
</span>Resolving Namespaces</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#dom-feature-string"><span class=secno>7. </span>DOM Feature
String</a>
<li><a href="#examples0"><span class=secno>8. </span>Examples</a>
<li class=no-num><a href="#references">References</a>
<ul class=toc>
<li class=no-num><a href="#normative-references">Normative
references</a>
<li class=no-num><a href="#informative-references">Informative
references</a>
</ul>
<li class=no-num><a href="#acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a>
</ul>
<!--end-toc-->
<h2 id=introduction><span class=secno>1. </span>Introduction</h2>
<p><em>This section is non-normative.</em>
<p>This specification introduces two methods that take a group of selectors
(often simply referred to as a selector) as an argument and return the
matching elements <a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>. With these methods, it is
easier to match a set of <code>Element</code> nodes based on specific
criteria, than having to subsequently filter the result of calling other
methods like <code>getElementsByTagName()</code>.
<h3 id=examples><span class=secno>1.1. </span>Examples</h3>
<p><em>This section is non-normative.</em>
<p>Some ECMAScript <a href="#ECMA-262"
rel=biblioentry>[ECMA-262]<!--{{ECMA-262}}--></a> examples:
<div class=example>
<p>This is an example table written in HTML 4.01.</p>
<pre>&lt;table id="score">
&lt;thead>
&lt;tr>
&lt;th>Test
&lt;th>Result
&lt;tfoot>
&lt;tr>
&lt;th>Average
&lt;td>82%
&lt;tbody>
&lt;tr>
&lt;td>A
&lt;td>87%
&lt;tr>
&lt;td>B
&lt;td>78%
&lt;tr>
&lt;td>C
&lt;td>81%
&lt;/table></pre>
<p>In order to obtain the cells containing the results in the table, which
might be done, for example, to plot the values on a graph, there are at
least two approaches that may be taken. Using only the APIs from DOM
Level 2, it requires a script like the following that iterates through
each <code>tr</code> within each <code>tbody</code> in the
<code>table</code> to find the second cell of each row.</p>
<pre>var table = document.getElementById("score");
var groups = table.tBodies;
var rows = null;
var cells = [];
for (var i = 0; i &lt; groups.length; i++) {
rows = groups[i].rows;
for (var j = 0; j &lt; rows.length; j++) {
cells.push(rows[j].cells[1]);
}
}</pre>
<p>Alternatively, using the <code
title=document-selectallelements>querySelectorAll()</code> method, that
script becomes much more concise.</p>
<pre>var cells = document.querySelectorAll("#score&gt;tbody&gt;tr&gt;td:nth-of-type(2)");</pre>
<p>Note that the script operates on the DOM and works independently from
the syntax used to create the document. Thus this script will also work
correctly for an equivalent table created from well-formed XHTML instead
of HTML, or dynamically created and inserted into a document using DOM
APIs.</p>
</div>
<h2 id=conformance><span class=secno>2. </span>Conformance Requirements</h2>
<p>All diagrams, examples and notes in this specification are
non-normative, as are all sections explicitly marked non-normative.
Everything else in this specification is normative.
<p>The key words <em class=ct>must</em>, <em class=ct>must not</em>, <em
class=ct>should</em>, <em class=ct>may</em> and <em
class=ct>recommended</em> in the normative parts of this document are to
be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 <a href="#RFC2119"
rel=biblioentry>[RFC2119]<!--{{!RFC2119}}--></a>.
<p>The following conformance classes are defined (and considered) by this
specification:
<dl>
<dt><dfn id=conforming-user-agent>conforming user agent</dfn>
<dd>A user agent that implements the <code><a
href="#dom-document-selector">NodeSelector</a></code> interface described
in this specification and conforms to all <em class=ct>must</em>-level
criteria that apply to implementations.
<dt><dfn id=conforming-application>conforming application</dfn>
<dd>An application that uses the interfaces defined in this specification
and conforms to all <em class=ct>must</em>-level criteria that apply to
applications.
</dl>
<h3 id=terminology><span class=secno>2.1. </span>Terminology and
Conventions</h3>
<p>The terminology used in this specification is that from Selectors <a
href="#SELECT" rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>.
<p>Conformance requirements phrased as algorithms or specific steps <em
class=ct>may</em> be implemented in any manner, so long as the end result
is equivalent.
<p>The IDL used in this specification uses the syntax defined in Web IDL <a
href="#WEBIDL" rel=biblioentry>[WEBIDL]<!--{{!WEBIDL}}--></a>.
<p>The construction "<code>Foo</code> object", where <code>Foo</code> is
actually an interface, is sometimes used instead of the more accurate
"object implementing the <code>Foo</code> interface".
<p>The interfaces used within, but not defined by, this specification,
including <code>Document</code>, <code>DocumentFragment</code>,
<code>Node</code> and <code>Element</code> are defined in DOM Level 3 Core
<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]<!--{{!DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE}}--></a>.
<h2 id=interoperability><span class=secno>3. </span>Interoperability
Considerations</h2>
<p><em>This section is non-normative.</em>
<p>Some implementations might have different levels of support for
Selectors. If some implementations lack support for some selectors, then
the use of such selectors will result in those implementations failing to
return the expected results. Authors are advised to check for the DOM
Exceptions thrown by these APIs and provide a fallback for graceful
degradation.
<h3 id=extensibility><span class=secno>3.1. </span>Extensibility</h3>
<p><em>This section is non-normative.</em>
<p>Extensions of the APIs defined in this specification are <em>strongly
discouraged</em>. Implementors, Working Groups and other interested
parties should discuss extensions on a relevant public forum, such as <a
href="mailto:public-webapps@w3.org">public-webapps@w3.org</a>.
<h2 id=security><span class=secno>4. </span>Security Considerations</h2>
<p>It is expected that implementing this specification introduces no new
security risks for users.
<p>If, at any time, the implementation detects a situation which would
violate security policies, the implementation <em class=ct>may</em> abort
and raise a security exception. If any other error condition occurs which
is not covered directly by this or any other relevant specification, the
implementation <em class=ct>may</em> abort and raise an appropriate,
language-binding-specific or implementation-specific exception.
<h2 id=privacy><span class=secno>5. </span>Privacy Considerations</h2>
<p>History theft is a potential privacy issue because the
<code>:visited</code> pseudo-class in Selectors <a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a> allows authors to query
which links have been visited.
<p class=note>This is not a new problem, as it can already be exploited
using existing CSS and DOM APIs, such as <code>getComputedStyle()</code>
<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-2-STYLE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-2-STYLE]<!--{{DOM-LEVEL-2-STYLE}}--></a>.
<div class=example>
<p>In this example, <var>vlinks</var> will acquire a list of links that
the user has visited. The author can then obtain the URIs and potentially
exploit this knowledge.</p>
<pre>var vlinks = document.querySelectorAll(":visited");
for (var i = 0; i &lt; vlinks.length; i++) {
doSomethingEvil(vlinks[i].href);
}</pre>
</div>
<p>As <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#link">defined in
<cite>Selectors</cite></a> (<a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section 6.6.1), user
agents <em class=ct>may</em> treat all links as unvisited links. It is <em
class=ct>recommended</em> that implementations behave consistently with
other uses of Selectors supported by the user agent.
<h2 id=the-apis><span class=secno>6. </span>The APIs</h2>
<p>The term <dfn id=first>first</dfn> used in the definitions of the
methods defined in this specification means <em>first in document
order</em>. The term <dfn id=document-order>document order</dfn> means a
depth-first pre-order traversal of the DOM tree or subtree in question.
The term <dfn id=context-node>context node</dfn> refers to the node upon
which the method was invoked. The term <dfn id=nodes-subtrees>node’s
subtrees</dfn> refers to the collection of elements that are descendants
of the <a href="#context-node">context node</a>. The term <dfn
id=matching-element-node>matching <code>Element</code> node</dfn> refers
to an <code>Element</code> node that matches the group of selectors
(<var>selectors</var>) that was passed to the method, according to the
rules for matching elements defined in Selectors <a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>.
<h3 id=nodeselector><span class=secno>6.1. </span>The <code
title="">NodeSelector</code> Interface</h3>
<pre class=idl>module dom {
[Supplemental, NoInterfaceObject]
interface <dfn id=dom-document-selector>NodeSelector</dfn> {
Element <a href="#queryselector" title=queryselector>querySelector</a>(in DOMString selectors);
NodeList <a href="#queryselectorall" title=queryselectorall>querySelectorAll</a>(in DOMString selectors);
};
Document implements NodeSelector;
DocumentFragment implements NodeSelector;
Element implements NodeSelector;
};</pre>
<p>The <dfn id=queryselector
title=queryselector><code>querySelector()</code></dfn> method on the
<code><a href="#dom-document-selector">NodeSelector</a></code> interface
<em class=ct>must</em>, when invoked, return the <a
href="#first">first</a> matching <code>Element</code> node within the <a
href="#nodes-subtrees">node’s subtrees</a>. If there is no such node,
the method <em class=ct>must</em> return <code>null</code>.
<p>The <dfn id=queryselectorall
title=queryselectorall><code>querySelectorAll()</code></dfn> method on the
<code><a href="#dom-document-selector">NodeSelector</a></code> interface
<em class=ct>must</em>, when invoked, return a <code>NodeList</code>
containing all of the matching <code>Element</code> nodes within the <a
href="#nodes-subtrees">node’s subtrees</a>, in <a
href="#document-order">document order</a>. If there are no such nodes, the
method <em class=ct>must</em> return an empty <code>NodeList</code>.
<p>Both <code title=queryselector><a
href="#queryselector">querySelector()</a></code> and <code
title=queryselectorall><a
href="#queryselectorall">querySelectorAll()</a></code> take a <a
href="#selector-string">selector string</a> (<var>selectors</var>) as
their argument.
<p>The <code>NodeList</code> object returned by the <code><a
href="#queryselectorall">querySelectorAll()</a></code> method <em
class=ct>must</em> be static, not <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/core.html#td-live"
title="Document Object Model Core">live</a> (<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]<!--{{!DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE}}--></a>,
section 1.1.1). Subsequent changes to the structure of the underlying
document <em class=ct>must not</em> be reflected in the
<code>NodeList</code> object. This means that the object will instead
contain a list of matching <code>Element</code> nodes that were in the
document at the time the list was created.
<h3 id=processing-selectors><span class=secno>6.2. </span>Processing
Selectors</h3>
<p>A <dfn id=selector-string>selector string</dfn> is a <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#grouping">group of
selectors</a> (<a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section 5). This group of
selectors <em class=ct>should</em> match the <code>selectors_group</code>
production (<a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section 10) with the
additional provision that leading and trailing <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#whitespace"
title=Selectors>whitespace</a> (<a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section 4) is permitted.
This group of selectors <em class=ct>should not</em> use <a
href="#namespace-prefix-needs-to-be-resolved"
title=need-to-resolve>namespace prefixes that need to be resolved</a>.
<p class=note>Implementers are advised that if <code>null</code> or
<code>undefined</code> are passed as the value of the <var>selectors</var>
parameter, they are to be handled as defined in WebIDL <a href="#WEBIDL"
rel=biblioentry>[WEBIDL]<!--{{!WEBIDL}}--></a>. Authors are advised to
avoid passing these values.
<p class=note>Authors are advised that while the use of pseudo-elements in
selectors is permitted, they will not match any elements in the document,
and thus would not result in any elements being returned. Therefore,
authors are advised to avoid the use of pseudo-elements in selectors that
are passed to the methods defined in this specification.
<p>The implementation <em class=ct>must</em> first trim any leading and/or
trailing <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#whitespace"
title=Selectors>whitespace</a> from the value of the <var>selectors</var>
parameter. The implementation <em class=ct>must</em> then process the
value according to <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#w3cselgrammar">the grammar of
Selectors</a> (<a href="#SELECT"
rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section 10). Selectors are
evaluated against a given element in the context of the entire DOM tree in
which the element is located. If the given group of selectors is <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#Conformance">invalid</a> (<a
href="#SELECT" rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>, section
13), the implementation <em class=ct>must</em> <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/core.html#DOMException-SYNTAX_ERR">raise
a <code>SYNTAX_ERR</code> exception</a> (<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]<!--{{!DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE}}--></a>,
section 1.4).
<p>If the user agent also supports some level of CSS, the implementation
<em class=ct>should</em> support the same set of selectors in both these
APIs and CSS.
<h3 id=resolving-namespaces><span class=secno>6.3. </span>Resolving
Namespaces</h3>
<p>If the group of selectors include <a
href="#namespace-prefix-needs-to-be-resolved"
title=need-to-resolve>namespace prefixes that need to be resolved</a>, the
implementation <em class=ct>must</em> <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/core.html#DOMException-NAMESPACE_ERR">raise
a <code>NAMESPACE_ERR</code> exception</a> (<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]<!--{{!DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE}}--></a>,
section 1.4).
<p class=note>This specification does not provide support for resolving
arbitrary namespace prefixes. However, support for a namespace prefix
resolution mechanism may be considered for inclusion in a future version
of this specification.
<p>A <dfn id=namespace-prefix-needs-to-be-resolved
title=need-to-resolve>namespace prefix needs to be resolved</dfn> if the
namespace component is neither empty (e.g. <code>|div</code>),
representing the null namespace, or an asterisk (e.g. <code>*|div</code>),
representing any namespace. Since the asterisk or empty namespace prefix
do not need to be resolved, implementations that support the namespace
syntax in Selectors <em class=ct>must</em> support these. <a
href="#SELECT" rel=biblioentry>[SELECT]<!--{{!SELECT}}--></a>
<p class=note>Implementations that don't support the namespace syntax in
Selectors would instead throw a <code>SYNTAX_ERR</code> because it would
be treated as an invalid selector.
<h2 id=dom-feature-string><span class=secno>7. </span>DOM Feature String</h2>
<p>DOM3 Core defines several methods for checking for interface support, or
for obtaining implementations of interfaces, using <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/core.html#DOMFeatures">feature
strings</a> (<a href="#DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE"
rel=biblioentry>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]<!--{{!DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE}}--></a>,
section 1.3.6). A DOM application can use these methods, each of which
accept <var>feature</var> and <var>version</var> parameters, using the
values "<code title="">Selectors-API</code>" and "<code>1.0</code>"
(respectively).
<p>Conforming implementations <em class=ct>must</em> respond with a
<code>true</code> value when the <code>hasFeature</code> method is queried
with these values. Authors are cautioned, however, that implementations
returning <code>true</code> might not be perfectly compliant, and that
implementations returning <code>false</code> might well have support for
features in this specification; in general, therefore, use of this method
is discouraged.
<h2 id=examples0><span class=secno>8. </span>Examples</h2>
<div class=example>
<p>The following examples make use of this sample XHTML document.</p>
<pre>&lt;html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
&lt;head>
&lt;title&gt;Selectors API Example&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;/head>
&lt;body>
&lt;div id="foo"&gt;
&lt;p class="warning"&gt;This is a sample warning&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="error"&gt;This is a sample error&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div id="bar"&gt;
&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/body>
&lt;/html></pre>
<p>The methods accept a group of selectors (comma separated) as the
argument. The following example would select all <code>p</code> elements
in the document that have a class of either "<code>error</code>" or
"<code>warning</code>".</p>
<pre>var alerts = document.querySelectorAll("p.warning, p.error");</pre>
<p>The <code title=document-selectelement>querySelector()</code> methods
also accept a group of selectors and they will return the first element
(if any) that matches any of the selectors in the group.</p>
<pre>var x = document.querySelector("#foo, #bar");</pre>
<p><var>x</var> would contain the first element in the document with an ID
of either <code>foo</code> or <code>bar</code>, or <code>null</code> if
there is no such element. In the sample document above, it would select
the <code>div</code> element with the ID of <code>foo</code> because it
is first in document order. The order of the selectors used in the
parameter has no effect and would have the same result if the order were
reversed, as in:</p>
<pre>var x = document.querySelector("#bar, #foo");</pre>
<p>The methods can also be invoked on elements. In the following example,
assume the event handler is registered on an element, and thus the method
is invoked on the target element of the event.</p>
<pre>function handle(evt) {
var x = evt.target.querySelector("span");
...
// Do something with x
}</pre>
<p>Even though the method is invoked on an element, selectors are still
evaluated in the context of the entire document. In the following
example, the method will still match the <code>div</code> element's child
<code>p</code> element, even though the <code>body</code> element is not
a descendant of the <code>div</code> element itself.</p>
<pre>var div = document.getElementById("bar");
var p = div.querySelector("body p");</pre>
<p>Given this sample fragment that contains a list as a navigation menu:</p>
<pre>&lt;ul class="nav"&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/"&gt;Home&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/products"&gt;Products&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/about"&gt;About&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</pre>
<p>The following example selects all the <code>li</code> elements and
demonstrates how to iterate through the collection in a
<code>NodeList</code>.</p>
<pre>var lis = document.querySelectorAll("ul.nav&gt;li");
for (var i = 0; i &lt; lis.length; i++) {
process(lis.item(i));
}</pre>
<p>In ECMAScript, the language binding also allows <code>NodeList</code>s
to be addressed using the array notation, so that loop could be rewritten
like this:</p>
<pre>for (var i = 0; i &lt; lis.length; i++) {
process(lis[i]);
}</pre>
<p>Since the <code>NodeList</code> objects returned by these methods are
not live, changes to the DOM do not affect the content of the list.
Consider the <code>process()</code> function called in the previous
examples is defined as follows:</p>
<pre>function process(elmt) {
elmt.parentNode.removeChild(elmt);
}</pre>
<p>This would cause each selected element to be removed from the DOM, but
each element will remain in the <code>NodeList</code>. If the list were a
live <code>NodeList</code>, removing an item from the DOM would also
remove the element from the list and adjust the indexes of subsequent
elements. That would have adverse effects upon the loop because not all
selected elements would be processed.</p>
<p>In documents comprising elements from multiple namespaces, it's
possible that some elements from different namespaces share the same
local name. Since this API does not natively support a namespace
resolution mechanism for selectors, obtaining a list of such elements
from a specific namespace, excluding all others, requires additional
processing to filter the result. The following example illustrates a
document containing <code>video</code> elements from both the SVG and
XHTML namespaces.</p>
<pre>&lt;svg id=&quot;svg1&quot; xmlns=&quot;http://www.w3.org/2000/svg&quot;
xmlns:xlink=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink&quot;&gt;
&lt;video id=&quot;svgvideo1&quot; xlink:href=&quot;myvideo.ogg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; height=&quot;240&quot;/&gt;
&lt;foreignObject width=&quot;100&quot; height=&quot;100&quot;&gt;
&lt;video id=&quot;htmlvideo1&quot; src=&quot;myvideo.ogg&quot; xmlns=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&quot;&gt;No video1&lt;/video&gt;
&lt;/foreignObject&gt;
&lt;/svg&gt;</pre>
<p>The following script demonstrates how to first select the
<code>video</code> elements and then filter out the unwanted elements
based on their namespace.</p>
<pre>var list = document.querySelectorAll("svg video");
var result = new Array();
var svgns = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
for(var i = 0; i < elms.length; i++) {
if(elms[i].namespaceURI == svgns) {
result.push(elms[i]);
}
}</pre>
</div>
<h2 class=no-num id=references>References</h2>
<h3 class=no-num id=normative-references>Normative references</h3>
<!--begin-normative-->
<!-- Sorted by label -->
<dl class=bibliography>
<dt style="display: none"><!-- keeps the doc valid if the DL is empty -->
<!---->
<dt id=DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE>[DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]
<dd>Gavin Nicol; et al. <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407/"><cite>Document
Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification.</cite></a> 7 April 2004.
W3C Recommendation. URL: <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407</a>
</dd>
<!---->
<dt id=RFC2119>[RFC2119]
<dd>S. Bradner. <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt"><cite>Key
words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels.</cite></a> Internet
RFC 2119. URL: <a
href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt">http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt</a>
</dd>
<!---->
<dt id=SELECT>[SELECT]
<dd>Daniel Glazman; et al. <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-css3-selectors-20091215/"><cite>Selectors
Level 3.</cite></a> 15 December 2009. W3C Proposed Recommendation. (Work in progress.)
URL: <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-css3-selectors-20091215">http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-css3-selectors-20091215</a>
</dd>
<!---->
<dt id=WEBIDL>[WEBIDL]
<dd>Cameron McCormack. <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-WebIDL-20081219/"><cite>Web
IDL.</cite></a> 19 December 2008. W3C Working Draft. (Work in progress.)
URL: <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-WebIDL-20081219">http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-WebIDL-20081219</a>
</dd>
<!---->
</dl>
<!--end-normative-->
<h3 class=no-num id=informative-references>Informative references</h3>
<!--begin-informative-->
<!-- Sorted by label -->
<dl class=bibliography>
<dt style="display: none"><!-- keeps the doc valid if the DL is empty -->
<!---->
<dt id=CSS21>[CSS21]
<dd>Bert Bos; et al. <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-CSS2-20090908/"><cite>Cascading Style
Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification.</cite></a> 8 September
2009. W3C Candidate Recommendation. (Work in progress.) URL: <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-CSS2-20090908">http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-CSS2-20090908</a>
</dd>
<!---->
<dt id=DOM-LEVEL-2-STYLE>[DOM-LEVEL-2-STYLE]
<dd>Chris Wilson; Philippe Le H&#233;garet; Vidur Apparao. <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Style-20001113/"><cite>Document
Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Style Specification.</cite></a> 13 November
2000. W3C Recommendation. URL: <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Style-20001113">http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Style-20001113</a>
</dd>
<!---->
<dt id=ECMA-262>[ECMA-262]
<dd><a
href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm"><cite>ECMAScript
Language Specification, Third Edition.</cite></a> December 1999. URL: <a
href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm">http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm</a>
</dd>
<!---->
</dl>
<!--end-informative-->
<h2 class=no-num id=acknowledgements>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>The editors would like to thank to the following people who have
contributed to this specification (ordered on first name):
<p>Adam van den Hoven, Alan Gresley, Alex Russell, Björn Höhrmann, Boris
Zbarsky, Cameron McCormack, Charles McCathieNevile, Chris Wilson,
Christophe Jolif, Daniel Glazman, Daniel Schierbeck, Dave Massy, David
"liorean" Andersson, David Håsäther, Dean Jackson, Doug Schepers, Erik
Dahlström, Francois Remy, Garret Smith, Hallvord R. M. Steen, Ian
Hickson, Ivan Enderlin, Jean-Yves Bitterlich, Jim Ley, João Eiras, John
Resig, Jon Ferraiolo, Jonas Sicking, Jorgen Horstink, Karl Dubost,
Kartikaya Gupta, L. David Baron, Maciej Stachowiak, Magnus Kristiansen,
Martijn, Masataka Yakura, Mihai Sucan, Mohamed Zergaoui, Nicholas C.
Zakas, Nicolas Mendoza, Philip Taylor, Robert Sayre, Robin Berjon, Sander,
Sergey Ilinsky, Simon Pieters, Steven Pemberton, Tarquin Wilton-Jones,
Travis Leithead, and William J. Edney
<p>Thanks to all those who have helped to improve this specification by
sending suggestions and corrections.