Ajax for Web Application Developers

The XML DOM

The XML Document Object Model defines a standard way for accessing and manipulating XML documents. The DOM enables JavaScript to completely access XML or XHTML documents by providing access to the elements which define the structure. The accessibility is possible through a set of intrinsic JavaScript objects that focus on DOM manipulation. This model is something that we will be using throughout the rest of this book because it is required to parse the responses that we receive from the server side when we create an XMLHTTPRequest (XHR). As mentioned earlier, the XHR is the core of the Ajax model and without it the model would not exist. This is the piece of the Ajax puzzle that has created the recent buzz because it allows HTTP requests ...