/*
 * Copyright (c) 2004 World Wide Web Consortium,
 *
 * (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, European Research Consortium for
 * Informatics and Mathematics, Keio University). All Rights Reserved. This
 * work is distributed under the W3C(r) Software License [1] in the hope that
 * it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
 * warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 *
 * [1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231
 */

package org.w3c.dom;

/**
 * The <code>Attr</code> interface represents an attribute in an 
 * <code>Element</code> object. Typically the allowable values for the 
 * attribute are defined in a schema associated with the document.
 * <p><code>Attr</code> objects inherit the <code>Node</code> interface, but 
 * since they are not actually child nodes of the element they describe, the 
 * DOM does not consider them part of the document tree. Thus, the 
 * <code>Node</code> attributes <code>parentNode</code>, 
 * <code>previousSibling</code>, and <code>nextSibling</code> have a 
 * <code>null</code> value for <code>Attr</code> objects. The DOM takes the 
 * view that attributes are properties of elements rather than having a 
 * separate identity from the elements they are associated with; this should 
 * make it more efficient to implement such features as default attributes 
 * associated with all elements of a given type. Furthermore, 
 * <code>Attr</code> nodes may not be immediate children of a 
 * <code>DocumentFragment</code>. However, they can be associated with 
 * <code>Element</code> nodes contained within a 
 * <code>DocumentFragment</code>. In short, users and implementors of the 
 * DOM need to be aware that <code>Attr</code> nodes have some things in 
 * common with other objects inheriting the <code>Node</code> interface, but 
 * they also are quite distinct.
 * <p>The attribute's effective value is determined as follows: if this 
 * attribute has been explicitly assigned any value, that value is the 
 * attribute's effective value; otherwise, if there is a declaration for 
 * this attribute, and that declaration includes a default value, then that 
 * default value is the attribute's effective value; otherwise, the 
 * attribute does not exist on this element in the structure model until it 
 * has been explicitly added. Note that the <code>Node.nodeValue</code> 
 * attribute on the <code>Attr</code> instance can also be used to retrieve 
 * the string version of the attribute's value(s).
 * <p> If the attribute was not explicitly given a value in the instance 
 * document but has a default value provided by the schema associated with 
 * the document, an attribute node will be created with 
 * <code>specified</code> set to <code>false</code>. Removing attribute 
 * nodes for which a default value is defined in the schema generates a new 
 * attribute node with the default value and <code>specified</code> set to 
 * <code>false</code>. If validation occurred while invoking 
 * <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code>, attribute nodes with 
 * <code>specified</code> equals to <code>false</code> are recomputed 
 * according to the default attribute values provided by the schema. If no 
 * default value is associate with this attribute in the schema, the 
 * attribute node is discarded. 
 * <p>In XML, where the value of an attribute can contain entity references, 
 * the child nodes of the <code>Attr</code> node may be either 
 * <code>Text</code> or <code>EntityReference</code> nodes (when these are 
 * in use; see the description of <code>EntityReference</code> for 
 * discussion). 
 * <p>The DOM Core represents all attribute values as simple strings, even if 
 * the DTD or schema associated with the document declares them of some 
 * specific type such as tokenized. 
 * <p>The way attribute value normalization is performed by the DOM 
 * implementation depends on how much the implementation knows about the 
 * schema in use. Typically, the <code>value</code> and 
 * <code>nodeValue</code> attributes of an <code>Attr</code> node initially 
 * returns the normalized value given by the parser. It is also the case 
 * after <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code> is called (assuming the 
 * right options have been set). But this may not be the case after 
 * mutation, independently of whether the mutation is performed by setting 
 * the string value directly or by changing the <code>Attr</code> child 
 * nodes. In particular, this is true when <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204#dt-charref'>character 
 * references</a> are involved, given that they are not represented in the DOM and they 
 * impact attribute value normalization. On the other hand, if the 
 * implementation knows about the schema in use when the attribute value is 
 * changed, and it is of a different type than CDATA, it may normalize it 
 * again at that time. This is especially true of specialized DOM 
 * implementations, such as SVG DOM implementations, which store attribute 
 * values in an internal form different from a string.
 * <p>The following table gives some examples of the relations between the 
 * attribute value in the original document (parsed attribute), the value as 
 * exposed in the DOM, and the serialization of the value: 
 * <table border='1' cellpadding='3'>
 * <tr>
 * <th>Examples</th>
 * <th>Parsed 
 * attribute value</th>
 * <th>Initial <code>Attr.value</code></th>
 * <th>Serialized attribute value</th>
 * </tr>
 * <tr>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * Character reference</td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x&amp;#178;=5"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x\u00b2=5"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x&amp;#178;=5"</pre>
 * </td>
 * </tr>
 * <tr>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>Built-in 
 * character entity</td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"y&amp;lt;6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"y&lt;6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"y&amp;lt;6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * </tr>
 * <tr>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>Literal newline between</td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>
 * "x=5&amp;#10;y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x=5 y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x=5&amp;#10;y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * </tr>
 * <tr>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>Normalized newline between</td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x=5 
 * y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x=5 y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>"x=5 y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * </tr>
 * <tr>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>Entity <code>e</code> with literal newline</td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'>
 * <pre>
 * &lt;!ENTITY e '...&amp;#10;...'&gt; [...]&gt; "x=5&amp;e;y=6"</pre>
 * </td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'><em>Dependent on Implementation and Load Options</em></td>
 * <td valign='top' rowspan='1' colspan='1'><em>Dependent on Implementation and Load/Save Options</em></td>
 * </tr>
 * </table>
 * <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification</a>.
 */
public interface Attr extends Node {
    /**
     * Returns the name of this attribute. If <code>Node.localName</code> is 
     * different from <code>null</code>, this attribute is a qualified name.
     */
    public String getName();

    /**
     *  <code>True</code> if this attribute was explicitly given a value in 
     * the instance document, <code>false</code> otherwise. If the 
     * application changed the value of this attribute node (even if it ends 
     * up having the same value as the default value) then it is set to 
     * <code>true</code>. The implementation may handle attributes with 
     * default values from other schemas similarly but applications should 
     * use <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code> to guarantee this 
     * information is up-to-date. 
     */
    public boolean getSpecified();

    /**
     * On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string. 
     * Character and general entity references are replaced with their 
     * values. See also the method <code>getAttribute</code> on the
     * <code>Element</code> interface.
     * <br>On setting, this creates a <code>Text</code> node with the unparsed 
     * contents of the string, i.e. any characters that an XML processor 
     * would recognize as markup are instead treated as literal text. See 
     * also the method <code>Element.setAttribute()</code>.
     * <br> Some specialized implementations, such as some [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-SVG11-20030114/'>SVG 1.1</a>] 
     * implementations, may do normalization automatically, even after 
     * mutation; in such case, the value on retrieval may differ from the 
     * value on setting. 
     */
    public String getValue();
    /**
     * On retrieval, the value of the attribute is returned as a string. 
     * Character and general entity references are replaced with their 
     * values. See also the method <code>getAttribute</code> on the 
     * <code>Element</code> interface.
     * <br>On setting, this creates a <code>Text</code> node with the unparsed 
     * contents of the string, i.e. any characters that an XML processor 
     * would recognize as markup are instead treated as literal text. See 
     * also the method <code>Element.setAttribute()</code>.
     * <br> Some specialized implementations, such as some [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-SVG11-20030114/'>SVG 1.1</a>] 
     * implementations, may do normalization automatically, even after 
     * mutation; in such case, the value on retrieval may differ from the 
     * value on setting. 
     * @exception DOMException
     *   NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised when the node is readonly.
     */
    public void setValue(String value)
                            throws DOMException;

    /**
     * The <code>Element</code> node this attribute is attached to or 
     * <code>null</code> if this attribute is not in use.
     * @since DOM Level 2
     */
    public Element getOwnerElement();

    /**
     *  The type information associated with this attribute. While the type 
     * information contained in this attribute is guarantee to be correct 
     * after loading the document or invoking 
     * <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code>, <code>schemaTypeInfo</code>
     *  may not be reliable if the node was moved. 
     * @since DOM Level 3
     */
    public TypeInfo getSchemaTypeInfo();

    /**
     *  Returns whether this attribute is known to be of type ID (i.e. to 
     * contain an identifier for its owner element) or not. When it is and 
     * its value is unique, the <code>ownerElement</code> of this attribute 
     * can be retrieved using the method <code>Document.getElementById</code>
     * . The implementation could use several ways to determine if an 
     * attribute node is known to contain an identifier: 
     * <ul>
     * <li> If validation 
     * occurred using an XML Schema [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-1-20010502/'>XML Schema Part 1</a>]
     *  while loading the document or while invoking 
     * <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code>, the post-schema-validation 
     * infoset contributions (PSVI contributions) values are used to 
     * determine if this attribute is a schema-determined ID attribute using 
     * the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/#term-sdi'>
     * schema-determined ID</a> definition in [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/'>XPointer</a>]
     * . 
     * </li>
     * <li> If validation occurred using a DTD while loading the document or 
     * while invoking <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code>, the infoset <b>[type definition]</b> value is used to determine if this attribute is a DTD-determined ID 
     * attribute using the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/#term-ddi'>
     * DTD-determined ID</a> definition in [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/'>XPointer</a>]
     * . 
     * </li>
     * <li> from the use of the methods <code>Element.setIdAttribute()</code>, 
     * <code>Element.setIdAttributeNS()</code>, or 
     * <code>Element.setIdAttributeNode()</code>, i.e. it is an 
     * user-determined ID attribute; 
     * <p ><b>Note:</b>  XPointer framework (see section 3.2 in [<a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/'>XPointer</a>]
     * ) consider the DOM user-determined ID attribute as being part of the 
     * XPointer externally-determined ID definition. 
     * </li>
     * <li> using mechanisms that 
     * are outside the scope of this specification, it is then an 
     * externally-determined ID attribute. This includes using schema 
     * languages different from XML schema and DTD. 
     * </li>
     * </ul>
     * <br> If validation occurred while invoking 
     * <code>Document.normalizeDocument()</code>, all user-determined ID 
     * attributes are reset and all attribute nodes ID information are then 
     * reevaluated in accordance to the schema used. As a consequence, if 
     * the <code>Attr.schemaTypeInfo</code> attribute contains an ID type, 
     * <code>isId</code> will always return true. 
     * @since DOM Level 3
     */
    public boolean isId();

}