Internet Explorer 6, Part I: DOM Standards Support: Using the Document Object - Doc JavaScript

Internet Explorer 6, Part I: DOM Standards Support

Using the Document Object

The document object is the root node of the document's DOM tree. But this node is treated differently in Internet Explorer 5.5 and Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 5.5 does not support any DOM properties of the document object. You will get undefined as a response to such queries. Internet Explorer 5.5 supports only the document.documentElement object. Its nodeName is HTML, and its nodeType is 1 (a tag). Internet Explorer 6 (as well as Netscape 6), on the other hand, supports the DOM properties of the document object. If you query document.nodeName, you will get #document. Its nodeType will be 9. In fact, its only child is the HTML tag node. Internet Explorer 5.5 does not support this direct relationship between the document object and the HTML tag. The documentElement object's first child, on the other hand, is HEAD, and its last child is BODY. The following buttons let you find out by yourself the value of these and other properties of the document object (right column) as well as those of the documentElement object (left column). We always return the node's name instead of its object, whenever applicable. Make sure the window is wide enough to get two columns of buttons:

Next: How to find the node's DOM context