JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

Sample Entry — how to read DOM reference pages

Availability

Availability

Inherits from/Overrides

Inherits from

Title and Short Description

Every reference entry begins with a four-part title block like that above. The entries are alphabetized by title. The short description, shown below the title, gives you a quick summary of the item documented in the entry; it can help you quickly decide if you’re interested in reading the rest of the page.

Availability

The availability information is shown in the upper-right corner of the title block. This information tells you what level and what module of the DOM standard defines the interface or method. Since properties do not have their own reference pages, they do not have availability information. If the availability of a property is different from the availability of the interface that defines it, this fact is noted in the description of the property.

Inherits from

DOM interfaces can inherit properties and methods from other interfaces. If a DOM interface inherits from another interface, the inheritance hierarchy is shown in the lower-right corner of the title block. For example, the “Inherits from” information for the HTMLElement interface looks like this:

Node → Element → HTMLElement

This indicates that HTMLElement inherits from the Element interface, which in turn inherits from the Node interface. When you see this section, you may also want to look up the other listed interfaces.

Subinterfaces

This section contains the opposite of the ...