Chapter 14. The Document Object
Every Window object has a
document
property. This property refers to a Document object that represents
the HTML document displayed in the window. The Document object is
probably the most commonly used object in client-side JavaScript.
We’ve already seen several examples in this book that use the
write( ) method of the Document object to insert
dynamic content into a document while it is being parsed. In addition
to the frequently used write( ) method, the
Document object defines properties that provide information about the
document as a whole: its URL, its last-modified date, the URL of the
document that linked to it, the colors in which it is displayed, and
so on.
Client-side JavaScript exists to turn static HTML documents into
interactive programs -- it is the Document object that gives
JavaScript interactive access to the content of otherwise static
documents. In addition to the properties that provide information
about a document as a whole, the Document object has a number of very
important properties that provide information about document content.
The forms[]
array, for instance, contains Form objects that represent all the
HTML forms in the document. And the
images[]
and applets[]
arrays contain objects that represent the images and applets in the
document. These arrays and the objects they contain open up a world
of possibilities for client-side JavaScript programs, and the bulk of
this chapter is devoted to documenting them.
This chapter ...
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