An XML processor may choose to completely expand entities before the structure model is passed to the DOM; in this case there will be no EntityReference nodes in the document tree.

XML does not mandate that a non-validating XML processor read and process entity declarations made in the external subset or declared in external parameter entities. This means that parsed entities declared in the external subset need not be expanded by some classes of applications, and that the replacement value of the entity may not be available. When the replacement value is available, the corresponding Entity node's child list represents the structure of that replacement text. Otherwise, the child list is empty.

The resolution of the children of the Entity (the replacement value) may be lazily evaluated; actions by the user (such as calling the childNodes method on the Entity Node) are assumed to trigger the evaluation.

The DOM Level 1 does not support editing Entity nodes. If a user wants to make changes to the contents of an Entity, every related EntityReference node has to be replaced in the structure model by a clone of the Entity's contents, and then the desired changes must be made to each of those clones instead. All the descendants of an Entity node are Read-only.

An Entity node does not have any parent.

Methods

getNotationName

getPublicID

getSystemID

getNotationName

For unparsed entities, the name of the notation for the entity. For parsed entities, this is null.

Syntax:

public java.lang.String getNotationName()

getPublicID

The public identifier associated with the entity, if specified. If the public identifier was not specified, this is null.

Syntax:

public java.lang.String getPublicId()

getSystemID

The system identifier associated with the entity, if specified. If the system identifier was not specified, this is null.

Syntax:

public java.lang.String getSystemId()

Glossary