Glossary

Editors:: Arnaud Le Hors, W3C; Robert S. Sutor, IBM Research (for DOM Level 1)

Several of the following term definitions have been borrowed or modified from similar definitions in other W3C or standards documents. See the links within the definitions for more information.

16-bit unit: The base unit of a DOMString. This indicates that indexing on a DOMString occurs in units of 16 bits. This must not be misunderstood to mean that a DOMString can store arbitrary 16-bit units. A DOMString is a character string encoded in UTF-16; this means that the restrictions of UTF-16 as well as the other relevant restrictions on character strings must be maintained. A single character, for example in the form of a numeric character reference, may correspond to one or two 16-bit units.
API: An API is an Application Programming Interface, a set of functions or methods used to access some functionality.
namespace well-formed: A node is a namespace well-formed XML node if it is a well-formed node, and follow the productions and namespace constraints. If [XML 1.0] is used, the constraints are defined in [XML Namespaces]. If [XML 1.1] is used, the constraints are defined in [XML Namespaces 1.1].
read only node: A read only node is a node that is immutable. This means its list of children, its content, and its attributes, when it is an element, cannot be changed in any way. However, a read only node can possibly be moved, when it is not itself contained in a read only node.
schema: A schema defines a set of structural and value constraints applicable to XML documents. Schemas can be expressed in schema languages, such as DTD, XML Schema, etc.
well-formed: A node is a well-formed XML node if its serialized form, without doing any transformation during its serialization, matches its respective production in [XML 1.0] or [XML 1.1] (depending on the XML version in use) with all well-formedness constraints related to that production, and if the entities which are referenced within the node are also well-formed. If namespaces for XML are in use, the node must also be namespace well-formed.