Note that several NodeInfo objects may represent the same node. To test node identity, the method {@link #isSameNodeInfo(NodeInfo)} should be used. An exception to this rule applies fordocument nodes, where the correspondence between document nodes and DocumentInfo objects is one to one. NodeInfo objects are never reused: a given NodeInfo object represents the same node for its entire lifetime.
This is the primary interface for accessing trees in Saxon, and it forms part of the public Saxon API. The only subclass of NodeInfo that applications should normally use is {@link DocumentInfo}, which represents a document node. Methods that form part of the public API are (since Saxon 8.4) labelled with a JavaDoc "since" tag: classes and methods that have no such label should not be regarded as stable interfaces.
The interface represented by this class is at a slightly higher level than the abstraction described in the W3C data model specification, in that it includes support for the XPath axes, rather than exposing the lower-level properties (such as "parent" and "children") directly. All navigation within trees, except for a few convenience methods, is done by following the axes using the {@link #iterateAxis} method.This allows different implementations of the XPath tree model to implement axis navigation in different ways. Some implementations may choose to use the helper methods provided in class {@link client.net.sf.saxon.ce.tree.util.Navigator}.
Note that the stability of this interface applies to classes that use the interface, not to classes that implement it. The interface may be extended in future to add new methods.
New implementations of NodeInfo are advised also to implement the methods in interface ExtendedNodeInfo, which will be moved into this interface at some time in the future. @author Michael H. Kay @since 8.4. Extended with three extra methods, previously in ExtendedNodeInfo, in 9.1
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