Document Object Model (DOM)

Updated 04 Oct 2026

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What it is
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  a structured node representation of a document that programs can inspect and modify
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Relationship to source
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  the browser constructs the DOM from parsed markup, the scripts may chagne it
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  parser-created elements and repairs can make the DOM differ from the literal source
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  DOM serialization is a representation of the current tree, not necessarily a reproduction of the original source text
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Debugging
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  inspect the actual DOM when a selector or layout behaves unexpectedly
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Related
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  HTML Parsing
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  CSS Debugging

Linked references 3