XML DOM Clone Nodes

Examples

The examples below use the XML file books.xml.
A function, loadXMLDoc(), in an external JavaScript is used to load the XML file.

Copy a node and append it to an existing node
This example uses cloneNode() to copy a node and append it to the root node of the XML document

Copy a Node

The cloneNode() method creates a copy of a specified node.

The cloneNode() method has a parameter (true or false). This parameter indicates if the cloned node should include all attributes and child nodes of the original node.

The following code fragment copies the first <book> node and appends it to the root node of the document:

xmlDoc=loadXMLDoc("books.xml");

oldNode=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('book')[0];
newNode=oldNode.cloneNode(true);
xmlDoc.documentElement.appendChild(newNode);

//Output all titles
y=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("title");
for (i=0;i<y.length;i++)
{
document.write(y[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue);
document.write("<br />");
}

Output:

Everyday Italian
Harry Potter
XQuery Kick Start
Learning XML
Everyday Italian

Example explained:

1. Load "books.xml" into xmlDoc using loadXMLDoc()
2. Get the node to copy
3. Copy the node into "newNode" using the cloneNode method
4. Append the new node to the the root node of the XML document
5. Output all titles for all books in the document

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