This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 1, a
platform- and language-neutral interface that allows
programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the
content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object
Model provides a standard set of objects for representing HTML
and XML documents, a standard model of how these objects can
be combined, and a standard interface for accessing and
manipulating them. Vendors can support the DOM as an interface
to their proprietary data structures and APIs, and content
authors can write to the standard DOM interfaces rather than
product-specific APIs, thus increasing interoperability on the
Web.
The goal of the DOM specification is to define a programmatic
interface for XML and HTML. The DOM Level 1 specification is separated
into two parts: Core and HTML. The Core DOM Level 1
section provides a low-level set of fundamental interfaces that can
represent any structured document, as well as defining extended interfaces
for representing an XML document. These extended XML interfaces need not be
implemented by a DOM implementation that only provides access to
HTML documents; all of the fundamental interfaces in the Core
section must
be implemented. A compliant DOM implementation that implements the
extended XML
interfaces is required to also implement the fundamental Core
interfaces, but not the HTML interfaces.
The HTML Level 1 section provides additional, higher-level
interfaces that are used with the fundamental interfaces defined in
the Core Level 1 section to provide a more convenient
view of an HTML document.
A compliant implementation of the HTML DOM implements all
of the fundamental Core interfaces as well as the
HTML interfaces.