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Can anyone please explain the difference between the Element object and Node object provided in JSoup ?

Which is the best thing to be used in which situation/condition.

glytching
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Abdeali Chandanwala
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2 Answers2

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A node is the generic name for any type of object in the DOM hierarchy.

An element is one specific type of node.

The JSoup class model reflects this:

Since Element extends Node anything you can do on a Node, you can do on an Element too. But Element provides additional behaviour which makes it easier to use, for example; an Element has properties such as id and class etc which make it easier to find them in a HTML document.

In most cases using Element (or one of the other subclasses of Document) will meet your needs and will be easier to code to. I suspect the only scenario in which you might need to fall back to Node is if there is a specific node type in the DOM for which JSoup does not provide a subclass of Node.

Here's an example showing the same HTML document inspection using both Node and Element:

String html = "<html><head><title>This is the head</title></head><body><p>This is the body</p></body></html>";
Document doc = Jsoup.parse(html);

Node root = doc.root();

// some content assertions, using Node
assertThat(root.childNodes().size(), is(1));
assertThat(root.childNode(0).childNodes().size(), is(2));
assertThat(root.childNode(0).childNode(0), instanceOf(Element.class));
assertThat(((Element)  root.childNode(0).childNode(0)).text(), is("This is the head"));
assertThat(root.childNode(0).childNode(1), instanceOf(Element.class));
assertThat(((Element)  root.childNode(0).childNode(1)).text(), is("This is the body"));

// the same content assertions, using Element
Elements head = doc.getElementsByTag("head");
assertThat(head.size(), is(1));
assertThat(head.first().text(), is("This is the head"));
Elements body = doc.getElementsByTag("body");
assertThat(body.size(), is(1));
assertThat(body.first().text(), is("This is the body"));

YMMV but I think the Element form is easier to use and much less error prone.

glytching
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1

It's seem like same. but different.

Node have Element. and additionally have TextNode too.

so... Example.

<p>A<span>B</span></p>

In P Elements.

.childNodes() // get node list
-> A
-> <span>B</span>

.children() // get element list
-> <span>B</span>
Jae Hong Park
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