ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

Name

XML.hasChildNodes( ) Method — check if a node has any descendants

Availability

Flash 5

Synopsis

theNode.hasChildNodes( )

Returns

A Boolean: true if theNode has any children; false if it does not.

Description

The hasChildNodes( ) method indicates whether any node hierarchy extends from a given node. It is synonymous with the comparison expression:

theNode.childNodes.length > 0

If theNode contains no subnodes, hasChildNodes( ) returns false.

Example

We can use hasChildNodes( ) to determine whether to operate on a node during node processing. For example, here we remove the nodes below the first child of a document until the first child has no more children:

while (myDoc.firstChild.hasChildNodes( )) {
  myDoc.firstChild.firstChild.removeNode( );
}

See Also

XML .childNodes