Imports a node from another document to this document. The returned node has no parent; (
parentNode
is
null
). The source node is not altered or removed from the original document; this method creates a new copy of the source node.
For all nodes, importing a node creates a node object owned by the importing document, with attribute values identical to the source node's
nodeName
and
nodeType
, plus the attributes related to namespaces (
prefix
,
localName
, and
namespaceURI
). As in the
cloneNode
operation on a
Node
, the source node is not altered.
Additional information is copied as appropriate to the
nodeType
, attempting to mirror the behavior expected if a fragment of XML or HTML source was copied from one document to another, recognizing that the two documents may have different DTDs in the XML case. The following list describes the specifics for every type of node.
- ELEMENT_NODE
- Specified attribute nodes of the source element are imported, and the generated
Attr
nodes are attached to the generated Element
. Default attributes are not copied, though if the document being imported into defines default attributes for this element name, those are assigned. If the importNode
deep
parameter was set to true
, the descendants of the source element will be recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. - ATTRIBUTE_NODE
- The
specified
flag is set to true
on the generated Attr
. The descendants of the source Attr
are recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. Note that the deep
parameter does not apply to Attr
nodes; they always carry their children with them when imported. - TEXT_NODE, CDATA_SECTION_NODE, COMMENT_NODE
- These three types of nodes inheriting from
CharacterData
copy their data
and length
attributes from those of the source node. - ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
- Only the
EntityReference
itself is copied, even if a deep
import is requested, since the source and destination documents might have defined the entity differently. If the document being imported into provides a definition for this entity name, its value is assigned. - ENTITY_NODE
Entity
nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType
is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType
will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM. On import, the publicId
, systemId
, and notationName
attributes are copied. If a deep
import is requested, the descendants of the the source Entity
is recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. - PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
- The imported node copies its
target
and data
values from those of the source node. - DOCUMENT_NODE
Document
nodes cannot be imported. - DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
DocumentType
nodes cannot be imported. - DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
- If the
deep
option was set true
, the descendants of the source element will be recursively imported and the resulting nodes reassembled to form the corresponding subtree. Otherwise, this simply generates an empty DocumentFragment
. - NOTATION_NODE
Notation
nodes can be imported, however in the current release of the DOM the DocumentType
is readonly. Ability to add these imported nodes to a DocumentType
will be considered for addition to a future release of the DOM. On import, the publicId
and systemId
attributes are copied. Note that the deep
parameter does not apply to Notation
nodes since they never have any children.
@param importedNode The node to import.
@param deep If
true
, recursively import the subtree under the specified node; if
false
, import only the node itself, as explained above. This does not apply to
Attr
,
EntityReference
, and
Notation
nodes.
@return The imported node that belongs to this
Document
.
@exception DOMException NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR: Raised if the type of node being imported is not supported.
@since DOM Level 2