creating a new, empty document with javascript

Question

I'm working with some very unintuitive xml (all the tags are things like "TX", "H", "VC").

I'd like to make a copy of this data, but with all of the tags renamed to what they actually mean. Can I create a new, empty document to put my new, nicely named tags in to?

I've tried this:

doc = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString("", 'text/xml');

but when I do so, I wind up with a document that has a child node, rather than being empty. Furthermore, that child's tagname is "parsererror"

So, any ideas how I can create an empty document?

LPL · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-07 17:44:42Z

6

I hade the same issue and I solved it like below:

xmlDoc = document.implementation.createDocument("", "", null);
root = xmlDoc.createElement("description");
xmlDoc.appendChild(root);
alert((new XMLSerializer()).serializeToString(xmlDoc));

edited Oct 7, 2011 at 17:44

LPL

17.1k6 gold badges54 silver badges98 bronze badges

answered Nov 18, 2009 at 0:09

Ralph

611 silver badge2 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Angel Yordanov · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-15 08:13:53Z

3

You can create an empty document in a W3C DOM compliant browser (IE9+ and the rest) with the following code.

var doc = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString('<dummy/>', 'text/xml');
doc.removeChild(doc.documentElement);

answered May 15, 2012 at 8:13

Angel Yordanov

3,2921 gold badge24 silver badges19 bronze badges

Comments

Armen Michaeli · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-15 11:57:38Z

2

The WHATWG's specification of the createDocument method allows one to provide null for each of the 3 arguments to createDocument, to have an "empty" XML document created and returned -- one without any root node and with the application/xml as its content type.

When the document object is available (a compliant Web user agent), the implementation with the createDocument method can be referred to with document.implementation:

document.implementation.createDocument(null, null, null);

You may then trivially attach a root node of your choosing to it by simply appending it as you otherwise would, as follows (empty_doc would refer to the document created and returned by the call above):

empty_doc.appendChild(empty_doc.createElement("foobar"));

edited Jan 15, 2020 at 11:57

answered Nov 4, 2018 at 20:53

Armen Michaeli

9,2709 gold badges66 silver badges101 bronze badges

Comments

John Millikin · Accepted Answer · 2009-05-18 23:34:59Z

1

I don't think you can create a document without the root node. You could create a fake node:

doc = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString("<dummy/>", 'text/xml');

However, a better solution might be to create constants for the node names:

// Use different variable names, like RealTxName, if desired
var REAL_TX_NAME = "TX";
var REAL_H_NAME = "H";

...
doc.find (REAL_TX_NAME);
...

answered May 18, 2009 at 23:34

John Millikin

202k41 gold badges216 silver badges228 bronze badges

1 Comment

morgancodes Over a year ago

Thanks. I've thought about that approach to, and may wind up using it. I'm just taking a few steps in several directions to see which way looks/feels more promising.

Anz · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-25 23:36:46Z

1

var xmldom = require('xmldom');
var tree = (new xmldom.DOMImplementation()).createDocument();

answered Apr 25, 2017 at 23:36

Anz

6241 gold badge6 silver badges15 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

creating a new, empty document with javascript

5 Answers 5

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

5 Answers 5

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related