001/*
002 * Copyright (c) 2000 World Wide Web Consortium,
003 * (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de
004 * Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All
005 * Rights Reserved. This program is distributed under the W3C's Software
006 * Intellectual Property License. This program is distributed in the
007 * hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
008 * the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
009 * PURPOSE.
010 * See W3C License http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ for more details.
011 */
012
013package org.w3c.dom;
014
015/**
016 * The <code>NodeList</code> interface provides the abstraction of an ordered 
017 * collection of nodes, without defining or constraining how this collection 
018 * is implemented. <code>NodeList</code> objects in the DOM are live.
019 * <p>The items in the <code>NodeList</code> are accessible via an integral 
020 * index, starting from 0.
021 * <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification</a>.
022 */
023public interface NodeList {
024    /**
025     * Returns the <code>index</code>th item in the collection. If 
026     * <code>index</code> is greater than or equal to the number of nodes in 
027     * the list, this returns <code>null</code>.
028     * @param indexIndex into the collection.
029     * @return The node at the <code>index</code>th position in the 
030     *   <code>NodeList</code>, or <code>null</code> if that is not a valid 
031     *   index.
032     */
033    public Node item(int index);
034
035    /**
036     * The number of nodes in the list. The range of valid child node indices 
037     * is 0 to <code>length-1</code> inclusive. 
038     */
039    public int getLength();
040
041}