xml-dev - RE: DOM (level 1): moving elements from one document to another

[David Valera <dvalera@pcl-hage.nl>]

> The problem is that a DOM node has an ownerDocument property associated
with it.  That's why
> the "factory" methods are on the Document interface.  cloneNode clones a
subtree within the
> same Document, so its nodes can't (at least as the spec is written) be
associated with another
> Document. The only way in Level 1 to move nodes from one Document to
another is to create the
> destination nodes in the context of the destination Document via its
factory methods.
> Since the DOM working group became aware of how tedious it is to work
around this situation, the
> importNode method was added in Level 2 to automate the process of moving
Nodes from one Document to
> another.  Check to see if your DOM implementation supports Level 2; some
already do, although the spec is
> not *quite* a Recommendation yet.

Well, I have always used this:

XMLTree.appendchild(Node.clonenode(true));

having XMLTree and Node a different ownerdocument. Would this mean that
using this methods should generate an error? I have used this in two
different parsers (with DOM 1 implementations) and none of them generated an
error.

David