/*

 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.

 *

 * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it

 * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as

 * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Sun designates this

 * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided

 * by Sun in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.

 *

 * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT

 * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or

 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License

 * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that

 * accompanied this code).

 *

 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version

 * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,

 * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

 *

 * Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara,

 * CA 95054 USA or visit www.sun.com if you need additional information or

 * have any questions.

 */

/*

 * This file is available under and governed by the GNU General Public

 * License version 2 only, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

 * However, the following notice accompanied the original version of this

 * file and, per its terms, should not be removed:

 *

 * Copyright (c) 2000 World Wide Web Consortium,

 * (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de

 * Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All

 * Rights Reserved. This program is distributed under the W3C's Software

 * Intellectual Property License. This program is distributed in the

 * hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even

 * the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR

 * PURPOSE. See W3C License http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ for more

 * details.

 */

package org.w3c.dom.html;

import org.w3c.dom.Node;

/**

 *  An <code>HTMLCollection</code> is a list of nodes. An individual node may

 * be accessed by either ordinal index or the node's<code>name</code> or

 * <code>id</code> attributes.  Note: Collections in the HTML DOM are assumed

 * to be  live meaning that they are automatically updated when the

 * underlying document is changed.

 * <p>See also the <a href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-DOM-Level-2-20000510'>Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Specification</a>.

 */

public interface HTMLCollection {

    /**

     *  This attribute specifies the length or  size of the list.

     */

    public int getLength();

    /**

     *  This method retrieves a node specified by ordinal index. Nodes are

     * numbered in tree order (depth-first traversal order).

     * @param index  The index of the node to be fetched. The index origin is

     *   0.

     * @return  The <code>Node</code> at the corresponding position upon

     *   success. A value of <code>null</code> is returned if the index is

     *   out of range.

     */

    public Node item(int index);

    /**

     *  This method retrieves a <code>Node</code> using a name. It first

     * searches for a <code>Node</code> with a matching <code>id</code>

     * attribute. If it doesn't find one, it then searches for a

     * <code>Node</code> with a matching <code>name</code> attribute, but

     * only on those elements that are allowed a name attribute.

     * @param name  The name of the <code>Node</code> to be fetched.

     * @return  The <code>Node</code> with a <code>name</code> or

     *   <code>id</code> attribute whose value corresponds to the specified

     *   string. Upon failure (e.g., no node with this name exists), returns

     *   <code>null</code> .

     */

    public Node namedItem(String name);

}