DOMNode::appendChild

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

DOMNode::appendChild — Adds new child at the end of the children

Beschreibung

public DOMNode::appendChild(DOMNode $node): DOMNode|false

This function appends a child to an existing list of children or creates a new list of children. The child can be created with e.g. DOMDocument::createElement(), DOMDocument::createTextNode() etc. or simply by using any other node.

When using an existing node it will be moved.

Parameter-Liste

node: The appended child.

Rückgabewerte

The node added or false on error.

Fehler/Exceptions

DOM_NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly or if the previous parent of the node being inserted is readonly.
DOM_HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR: Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the node node, or if the node to append is one of this node's ancestors or this node itself.
DOM_WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR: Raised if node was created from a different document than the one that created this node.

Beispiele

The following example will add a new element node to a fresh document.

Beispiel #1 Adding a child

<?php

$doc = new DOMDocument;

$node = $doc->createElement("para");
$newnode = $doc->appendChild($node);

echo $doc->saveXML();
?>

Beispiel #2 Nested children

<?php

$doc = new DOMDocument;

$headNode = $doc->createElement("head");
$doc->appendChild($headNode);

$titleNode = $doc->createElement("title");
$headNode->appendChild($titleNode);

echo $doc->saveXML();
?>

Siehe auch

DOMChildNode::after() - Adds nodes after the node
DOMNode::insertBefore() - Adds a new child before a reference node
DOMNode::removeChild() - Removes child from list of children
DOMNode::replaceChild() - Replaces a child

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User Contributed Notes 4 notes

down

krisdover at hotmail dot com ¶

16 years ago

What's not mentioned here is that DOMNode::appendChild() can also be used to move an existing node to another part of the DOMDocument, e.g.

<?php
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadXML("<foobar><bar/><foo/></foobar>");
$bar = $doc->documentElement->firstChild;
$foo = $doc->documentElement->lastChild;
$foo->appendChild($bar);
print $doc->saveXML();
?>

This produces:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<foobar><foo><bar/></foo></foobar>

Note that the nodes "<foo/>" and "<bar/>" were siblings, i.e. the first and last child of "<foobar>" but using appendChild() we were able to move "<bar/>" so that it is a child of "<foo/>".

This saves you the trouble of doing a DOMNode::removeChild($bar) to remove "<bar/>" before appending it as a child of "<foo/>". 

Kris Dover

down

cweiske at php dot net ¶

7 years ago

If you want to move the children of one node to another, you cannot simply iterate on $element->childNodes - you have to make an array first:

<?php
$children = [];
foreach ($elemWithChildren->childNodes as $child) {
    $children[] = $child;
}
foreach ($children as $child) {
    $targetElement->appendChild($child);
}
?>

down

jrtayloriv at gmail dot com ¶

16 years ago

If you want to create nested DOM elements:

<?php
    $doc = new DOMDocument();
    
    $foo = $doc->createElement("foo");
    $doc->appendChild($foo);

    $bar = $doc->createElement("bar");
    $foo->appendChild($bar);

    $bazz = $doc->createElement("bazz");
    $foo->appendChild($bazz);

    echo $doc->saveXML();
?>

Is equivalent to:

<foo>
  <bar></bar>
  <bazz></bazz>
</foo>

down

frame at dynamiccreated dot de ¶

13 years ago

Aware dealing with DOMNodeList and appendChild() on the same Node.

If you want to replace only the children not the DOMElement itself you probably foreach childNodes-property or get the DOMElements with a for-loop and item()-method of the DOMNodeList.

You will fail if you not clone the received single DOMElement. Actually the count of the DOMNodelist will be decreased on appendChild count but appendChild seems to refer to the old Nodelist and nothing visible will happen. Cloning will help.

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