Document Object Model
W3C DOM (http://www.w3.org/DOM/ ) defines a platform-independent programmatic interface to web documents:
- provides access to structured data
- adds object orientation to page layout and design (XML and HTML elements are objects with properties and methods)
- is implemented with a scripting language
- defines event model (in level 2 DOM)
- defines a way of navigating through component objects in a web page
Initially, DOM is bound to ECMAScript but is language neutral in design
Current Browsers implicitly define a DOM which is somewhat different between Microsoft and Netscape and very different between versions 4 and 5