StartElement Method

Writes the opening tag of an XML element.

Syntax

xmlw.startElement(name, namespaceURI, [callback])

Callback

The 'callback' parameter specifies a function which will be called when the operation completes (or an error is encountered). If the 'callback' parameter is not specified, then the method will block and will not return until the operation completes (or an error is encountered).

The callback for this method is defined as:

function(err){ }

'err' is the error that occurred. If there was no error, then 'err' is 'null'.

'err' has 2 properties which hold detailed information:

err.code
err.message

Remarks

Writes the opening tag of a new XML element. If an XML element is already opened, then this element is written as a child.

If Name is a local name without a prefix, the class will automatically introduce a new xmlns="NamespaceURI" attribute if necessary.

If Name is in the form prefix:local, then class will automatically introduce a new xmlns:prefix="NamespaceURI" as necessary.

When calling WriteElement or StartElement, if a NamespaceURI is not specified an empty namespace will be defined for the element. If a namespace should be associated with the element, a NamespaceURI value must be provided. When creating the XML, the class will determine if the namespace already exists to avoid duplicate definitions of the same namespace. For example, to create this XML:

<book xmlns='urn:loc.gov:books'
      xmlns:isbn='urn:ISBN:0-395-36341-6'>
    <title>Cheaper by the Dozen</title>
    <isbn:number>1568491379</isbn:number>
</book>

Use the code:

xmlw.StartElement("book", "urn:loc.gov:books");
xmlw.WriteAttribute("xmlns:isbn", "", "urn:ISBN:0-395-36341-6");
xmlw.WriteElement("title", "urn:loc.gov:books", "Cheaper by the Dozen");
xmlw.WriteElement("isbn:number", "urn:ISBN:0-395-36341-6", "1568491379");
xmlw.Close();

In the above example the "title" element uses the default namespace "urn:loc.gov:books" and the "number" element uses the "urn:ISBN:0-395-36341-6" namespace as defined for the "isbn" prefix.