2.1.1 [DOM Level 1] Section 1.2, Fundamental Interfaces

  • Article

V0001:

The specification states:

 IDL Definition 
 exception DOMException {
   unsigned short   code;
 };

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The DOMException interface is not supported.

V0002:

The specification states:

 While it is true that a Document object could fulfil this role, a Document object 
 can potentially be a heavyweight object, depending on the underlying 
 implementation. What is really needed for this is a very lightweight object. 
 DocumentFragment is such an object.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The DocumentFragment interface is derived from the Document interface. The createDocumentFragment method returns a full Document object.

V0003:

The specification states:

 IDL Definition 
 interface DocumentFragment : Node {
 };

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The DocumentFragment interface is derived from the Document interface. The Document interface is derived from the Node interface.

V0004:

The specification states:

 Method
 createElement 
 Creates an element of the type specified. Note that the instance returned 
 implements the Element interface, so attributes can be specified directly on the 
 returned object. 
  
 Parameters 
 tagName  The name of the element type to instantiate. For XML, this is case-sensitive. 
 For HTML, the tagName parameter may be provided in any case, but it must be mapped 
 to the canonical uppercase form by the DOM implementation.  
  
 Return Value 
 A new Element object. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException
 INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an invalid character.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following variation apply:

  • The createElement method is overloaded with one that takes no parameters. When no parameters are given, this method returns an element with a tagName of null.

  • The createElement method accepts full element declaration strings that contain otherwise invalid characters for the tagName parameter. A parameter string such as "<div id='div1'>" would return a div element with an id of div1. An INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR exception is not raised in this case.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, IE8 Mode, and IE9 Mode (All Versions)

  • When an element that contains an XMLNS declaration (such as <html XMLNS:mns='http://www.contoso.com'>) is specified for the tagName parameter, the value of the tagUrn property for the new element is set to the specified URI.

V0005:

The specification states:

 interface Document : Node
    
 Method
 createCDATASection 
 Creates a CDATASection node whose value is the specified string. 
  
 Parameters 
 data  
 The data for the CDATASection contents.
  
 Return Value 
 The new CDATASection object. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The createCDATASection method of the Document interface is not supported.

V0006:

The specification states:

 interface Document : Node
    
 Method
 createProcessingInstruction 
 Creates a ProcessingInstruction node given the specified name and data strings. 
  
 Parameters 
 target  
 The target part of the processing instruction. data  The data for the node.
  
 Return Value 
 The new ProcessingInstruction object. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if an invalid character is specified.
 NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if this document is an HTML document.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The createProcessingInstruction method of the Document interface is not supported.

V0008:

The specification states:

 IDL Definition 
 interface Node {
   // NodeType
   const unsigned short      ELEMENT_NODE       = 1;
   const unsigned short      ATTRIBUTE_NODE     = 2;
   const unsigned short      TEXT_NODE          = 3;
   const unsigned short      CDATA_SECTION_NODE = 4;
   const unsigned short      ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE = 5;
   const unsigned short      ENTITY_NODE        = 6;
   const unsigned short      PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE = 7;
   const unsigned short      COMMENT_NODE       = 8;
   const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_NODE      = 9;
   const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE = 10;
   const unsigned short      DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE = 11;
   const unsigned short      NOTATION_NODE      = 12;
  
   readonly attribute  DOMString            nodeName;
            attribute  DOMString            nodeValue;
                                            // raises(DOMException) on setting
                                            // raises(DOMException) on retrieval
   readonly attribute  unsigned short       nodeType;
   readonly attribute  Node                 parentNode;
   readonly attribute  NodeList             childNodes;
   readonly attribute  Node                 firstChild;
   readonly attribute  Node                 lastChild;
   readonly attribute  Node                 previousSibling;
   readonly attribute  Node                 nextSibling;
   readonly attribute  NamedNodeMap         attributes;
   readonly attribute  Document             ownerDocument;
   Node                      insertBefore(in Node newChild, 
                                          in Node refChild)
                                          raises(DOMException);
   Node                      replaceChild(in Node newChild, 
                                          in Node oldChild)
                                          raises(DOMException);
   Node                      removeChild(in Node oldChild)
                                         raises(DOMException);
   Node                      appendChild(in Node newChild)
                                         raises(DOMException);
   boolean                   hasChildNodes();
   Node                      cloneNode(in boolean deep);
 };

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following constants are not accessible by name:

  • ELEMENT_NODE

  • ATTRIBUTE_NODE

  • TEXT_NODE

  • CDATA_SECTION_NODE

  • ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

  • ENTITY_NODE

  • PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

  • COMMENT_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

  • NOTATION_NODE

V0009:

The specification states:

 Definition group 
 NodeType
 An integer indicating which type of node this is.
  
 Defined Constants 
 ELEMENT_NODE The node is a Element. 
 ATTRIBUTE_NODE The node is an Attr. 
 TEXT_NODE The node is a Text node. 
 CDATA_SECTION_NODE The node is a CDATASection. 
 ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE The node is an EntityReference. 
 ENTITY_NODE The node is an Entity. 
 PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE The node is a ProcessingInstruction. 
 COMMENT_NODE The node is a Comment. 
 DOCUMENT_NODE The node is a Document. 
 DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE The node is a DocumentType. 
 DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE The node is a DocumentFragment. 
 NOTATION_NODE The node is a Notation.
  
 The values of nodeName, nodeValue, and attributes vary according to the node type 
 as follows:  
                       nodeName, nodeValue, attributes 
 Element               tagName, null, NamedNodeMap 
 Attr                  name of attribute, value of attribute, null 
 Text                  #text, content of the text node, null 
 CDATASection          #cdata-section, content of the CDATA Section, null 
 EntityReference       name of entity referenced, null, null 
 Entity                entity name, null, null 
 ProcessingInstruction target, entire content excluding the target, null 
 Comment               #comment, content of the comment, null 
 Document              #document, null, null 
 DocumentType          document type name, null, null 
 DocumentFragment      #document-fragment, null, null 
 Notation              notation name, null, null

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following constants are not supported:

  • ELEMENT_NODE

  • ATTRIBUTE_NODE

  • TEXT_NODE

  • CDATA_SECTION_NODE

  • ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE

  • ENTITY_NODE

  • PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE

  • COMMENT_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE

  • DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

  • NOTATION_NODE

A document type declaration is treated as a Comment object instead of a DocumentType object

V0010:

The specification states:

 Attribute
 nodeName 
 The name of this node, depending on its type; see the table above.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The nodeName property returns uppercase values except for elements with names that resemble namespaces (such as <test:elementName>) when a proprietary namespace has been declared. In this case, the nodeName property drops the element prefixes and does not return uppercase values.

V0011:

The specification states:

 Attribute  
 parentNode 
 The parent of this node. All nodes, except Document, DocumentFragment, and Attr may 
 have a parent. However, if a node has just been created and not yet added to the 
 tree, or if it has been removed from the tree, this is null.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

When an element without a parent has child nodes, an HTMLDocument object is created and set as the parent of that element.

V0012:

The specification states:

 Attribute  
 childNodes 
 A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no children, this 
 is a NodeList containing no nodes. The content of the returned NodeList is "live" 
 in the sense that, for instance, changes to the children of the node object that it 
 was created from are immediately reflected in the nodes returned by the NodeList 
 accessors; it is not a static snapshot of the content of the node. This is true for 
 every NodeList, including the ones returned by the getElementsByTagName method.

All Document Modes (Internet Explorer 8)

Splitting multiple text nodes under an element using the splitText method can cause the childNodes collection update to be delayed. Other tree modifications cause the childNodes collection to synchronize again.

V0013:

The specification states:

 Method 
 insertBefore Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild. If 
 refChild is null, insert newChild at the end of the list of children. If newChild 
 is a DocumentFragment object, all of its children are inserted, in the same order, 
 before refChild. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed. 
  
 Parameters 
 newChild  The node to insert. 
 refChild  The reference node, i.e., the node before which the new node must be 
 inserted.
  
 Return Value 
 The node being inserted. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not 
 allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to insert is one of 
 this node's ancestors.
 WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than 
 the one that created this node.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
 NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if refChild is not a child of this node.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The conditions to trigger the exceptions HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR and WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR both result in an HRESULT 0x80070057, which creates a JavaScript Error message "Invalid argument."

The following elements cause an exception when trying to dynamically insert or append new nodes:

  • APPLET

  • AREA

  • BASE

  • BGSOUND

  • BR

  • COL

  • COMMENT

  • EMBED

  • FRAME

  • HR

  • IFRAME

  • IMG

  • INPUT

  • ISINDEX

  • LINK

  • META

  • NEXTID

  • NOEMBED

  • NOFRAMES

  • NOSCRIPT

  • OBJECT

  • PARAM

  • SCRIPT

  • STYLE

  • WBR

V0014:

The specification states:

 Method 
 replaceChild Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of 
 children, and returns the oldChild node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it 
 is first removed. 
  
 Parameters 
 newChild  The new node to put in the child list. 
 oldChild  The node being replaced in the list.
  
 Return Value 
 The node replaced. 
  
 Exceptions DOMException  HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type 
 that does not allow children of the type of the newChild node, or it the node to 
 put in is one of this node's ancestors.
 WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than 
 the one that created this node.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
 NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The conditions to trigger HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR, WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR, and NOT_FOUND_ERR all result in an HRESULT 0x80070057, which creates a JavaScript Error message "Invalid argument."

V0015:

The specification states:

 Method
 removeChild Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, 
 and returns it. 
  
 Parameters 
 oldChild  The node being removed.
  
 Return Value 
 The node removed. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
 NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

If the child node indicated by the oldChild parameter is not from the list of child nodes, the removeChild method of the Node interface raises a JSError exception with an error message of "Invalid argument"and an HRESULT of 0x80070057.

V0016:

The specification states:

 Method
 appendChild Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. 
 If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed. 
  
 Parameters 
 newChild  The node to add. If it is a DocumentFragment object, the entire contents 
 of the document fragment are moved into the child list of this node
  
 Return Value 
 The node added. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not 
 allow children of the type of the newChild node, or if the node to append is one of 
 this node's ancestors.
 WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if newChild was created from a different document than 
 the one that created this node.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The conditions to trigger HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR and WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR both result in an HRESULT 0x80070057, which creates a JavaScript Error message "Invalid argument."

The following elements cause an exception when trying to dynamically insert or append new nodes:

  • APPLET

  • AREA

  • BASE

  • BGSOUND

  • BR

  • COL

  • COMMENT

  • EMBED

  • FRAME

  • HR

  • IFRAME

  • IMG

  • INPUT

  • ISINDEX

  • LINK

  • META

  • NEXTID

  • NOEMBED

  • NOFRAMES

  • NOSCRIPT

  • OBJECT

  • PARAM

  • SCRIPT

  • STYLE

  • WBR

V0017:

The specification states:

 Method
 setNamedItem Adds a node using its nodeName attribute. As the nodeName attribute is 
 used to derive the name which the node must be stored under, multiple nodes of 
 certain types (those that have a "special" string value) cannot be stored as the 
 names would clash. This is seen as preferable to allowing nodes to be aliased. 
  
 Parameters 
 arg  A node to store in a named node map. The node will later be accessible using 
 the value of the nodeName attribute of the node. If a node with that name is 
 already present in the map, it is replaced by the new one.
  
 Return Value 
 If the new Node replaces an existing node with the same name the previously 
 existing Node is returned, otherwise null is returned. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if arg was created from a different 
 document than the one that created the NamedNodeMap.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this NamedNodeMap is readonly.
 INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR: Raised if arg is an Attr that is already an attribute of 
 another Element object. The DOM user must explicitly clone Attr nodes to re-use 
 them in other elements.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • The WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR exception is not raised if the arg parameter was created from a document other than the one that created NamedNodeMap.

  • Instead of the INUSE_ATTRIBUTE_ERR exception, if arg is an Attr that is already an attribute of another Element object, the setNamedItem method of the Node interface raises a JSError exception with an error message of "Invalid argument"and an HRESULT of 0x80070057.

V0018:

The specification states:

 Method
 item Returns the indexth item in the map. If index is greater than or equal to the 
 number of nodes in the map, this returns null. 
  
 Parameters
 index  Index into the map.
  
 Return Value 
 The node at the indexth position in the NamedNodeMap, or null if that is not a 
 valid index. 
  
 This method raises no exceptions.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

Instead of returning null when the index parameter is greater than the number of nodes in the map, the item method of the Node interface throws a JSError exception with an error message of "Invalid argument" and an HRESULT of 0x80070057.

V0019:

The specification states:

 Method
 substringData Extracts a range of data from the node. 
  
 Parameters
 offset  Start offset of substring to extract. count  The number of characters to 
 extract.
  
 Return Value 
 The specified substring. If the sum of offset and count exceeds the length, then 
 all characters to the end of the data are returned. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater 
 than the number of characters in data, or if the specified count is negative.
 DOMSTRING_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified range of text does not fit into a DOMString.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • No exception is raised if the offset is greater than the number of 16-bit units in the data. 

  • Instead of the INDEX_SIZE_ERR DOMException, if the specified offset is negative or greater than the number of characters in the data or the specified count is negative, the substringData method of the Node interface raises a JScript Error exception with an error message of "Invalid argument"and an HRESULT of 0x80070057.

V0020:

The specification states:

 Attribute 
 specified 
 If this attribute was explicitly given a value in the original document, this is 
 true; otherwise, it is false. Note that the implementation is in charge of this 
 attribute, not the user. If the user changes the value of the attribute (even if it 
 ends up having the same value as the default value) then the specified flag is 
 automatically flipped to true. To re-specify the attribute as the default value 
 from the DTD, the user must delete the attribute. The implementation will then make 
 a new attribute available with specified set to false and the default value (if one 
 exists). In summary: 
 - If the attribute has an assigned value in the document then specified is true, 
 and the value is the assigned value. 
 - If the attribute has no assigned value in the document and has a default value in 
 the DTD, then specified is false, and the value is the default value in the DTD.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

The value of the specified attribute is not automatically flipped when the associated attribute is changed.

V0022:

The specification states:

 Attribute 
 tagName 
 The name of the element. For example, in: <elementExample id="demo"> ... 
 </elementExample> ,tagName has the value "elementExample". Note that this is case-
 preserving in XML, as are all of the operations of the DOM. The HTML DOM returns 
 the tagName of an HTML element in the canonical uppercase form, regardless of the 
 case in the source HTML document.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The tagName property returns uppercase values except for elements with names that resemble namespaces (such as <test:elementName>) when a proprietary namespace has been declared. In this case, the tagName property drops the element prefixes and does not return uppercase values.

V0023:

The specification states:

 Method 
 getAttribute Retrieves an attribute value by name. 
  
 Parameters 
 name  The name of the attribute to retrieve.
  
 Return Value The Attr value as a string, or the empty string if that attribute does 
 not have a specified or default value. 
  
 This method raises no exceptions.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

The getAttribute method supports a second parameter called iFlags. The iFlags parameter controls case sensitivity and object interpolation. By default, iFlags is set to 0, which indicates that the property search done by the getAttribute method is not case-sensitive and returns an interpolated value if the property is found.

V0024:

The specification states:

 Method  
 setAttribute Adds a new attribute. If an attribute with that name is already 
 present in the element, its value is changed to be that of the value parameter. 
 This value is a simple string, it is not parsed as it is being set. So any markup 
 (such as syntax to be recognized as an entity reference) is treated as literal 
 text, and needs to be appropriately escaped by the implementation when it is 
 written out. In order to assign an attribute value that contains entity references, 
 the user must create an Attr node plus any Text and EntityReference nodes, build 
 the appropriate subtree, and use setAttributeNode to assign it as the value of an attribute. 
  
 Parameters 
 name  The name of the attribute to create or alter. value  Value to set in string form.
  
 Exceptions DOMException  INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name 
 contains an invalid character.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
  
 This method returns nothing.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • The setAttribute method assigns attributes in a case-sensitive manner (expected case-insensitive for HTML).

  • The second parameter of the setAttribute method accepts only strings, not objects. An optional third parameter controls case sensitivity.

  • Attributes that apply a boolean initial state to the associated DOM properties (for example, value and checked) are incorrectly associated with their live property rather than their default property. For example, the setAttribute method ('checked', 'checked') toggles the DOM checked property (the live view of a check box) rather than the defaultChecked property (initial value).

  • The HTML style attribute and attributes that are event handlers do not apply their conditions when used with setAttribute.

  • The setAttribute method requires DOM property names to apply effects for certain attribute names, such as className (instead of 'class'), htmlFor (instead of 'for'), and httpEquiv (instead of 'http-equiv').

V0025:

The specification states:

 Method  
 removeAttribute Removes an attribute by name. If the removed attribute has a 
 default value it is immediately replaced. 
  
 Parameters 
 name  The name of the attribute to remove.
  
 Exceptions DOMException  NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
  
 This method returns nothing.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • The removeAttribute method supports an additional parameter called iCaseSensitive. The iCaseSensitive parameter specifies whether to use a case-sensitive search to find the attribute. Removal of event handler attributes (such as onClick) or the style attribute does not cause the actual event handler to be removed, or the inline style to be removed.

  • Default attributes are not re-created after the attribute is removed.

IE7 Mode, IE8 Mode, IE9 Mode, IE10 Mode, and IE11 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • The removeAttribute method of the Element interface exists on CSSStyleDeclaration objects that are used for inline styles, runtime styles, and style rules.

  • The removeAttribute method returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the operation has succeeded or failed. The removeAttribute method is also available on the following objects: element.currentStyle, element.runtimeStyle, element.style, and stylesheet.style.

V0026:

The specification states:

 Method  
 removeAttributeNode Removes the specified attribute. 
 Parameters 
 oldAttr  The Attr node to remove from the attribute list. If the removed Attr has a 
 default value it is immediately replaced.
  
 Return Value The Attr node that was removed. 
  
 Exceptions DOMException  NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.
 NOT_FOUND_ERR: Raised if oldAttr is not an attribute of the element.

Quirks Mode and IE7 Mode (All Versions)

Default attributes are not re-created after an attribute is removed with the removeAttributeNode method. Removal of event handler attributes (such as onclick) or the style attribute does not cause the actual event handler or the inline style to be removed.

V0027:

The specification states:

 Method
 getElementsByTagName 
 Returns a NodeList of all descendant elements with a given tag name, in the order 
 in which they would be encountered in a preorder traversal of the Element tree. 
  
 Parameters 
 name  The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags.
  
 Return Value 
 A list of matching Element nodes.
  
 This method raises no exceptions.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The following variations apply:

  • When called on an object element, where the value "*" is passed in as the value of the name parameter, the getElementsByTagName method returns an empty NodeList.

  • When called on an OBJECT element, where param is passed in as the value of the name parameter, the getElementsByTagName method returns a NodeList that contains all the PARAM elements in the document.

V0028:

The specification states:

 Method
 splitText 
 Breaks this Text node into two Text nodes at the specified offset, keeping both in 
 the tree as siblings. This node then only contains all the content up to the offset 
 point. And a new Text node, which is inserted as the next sibling of this node, 
 contains all the content at and after the offset point. 
  
 Parameters 
 offset  The offset at which to split, starting from 0.
  
 Return Value 
 The new Text node. 
  
 Exceptions 
 DOMException  INDEX_SIZE_ERR: Raised if the specified offset is negative or greater 
 than the number of characters in data.
 NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.

Quirks Mode, IE7 Mode, and IE8 Mode (All Versions)

The offset parameter is treated as though it is optional. If no offset is provided, then a default offset of 0 is used.

All Document Modes (Internet Explorer 8)

The childNodes objects are kept in a cache and are invalidated whenever there is a modification to the markup. Calling the splitText method of the Text interface does not trigger a markup modification. The childNodes collection does not show changes made by splitText until the markup is modified, for example, by changing the text of a DIV element anywhere on the page.