Syntax

createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, documentType)

Parameters

namespaceURI

A string containing the namespace URI of the document to be created, or null if the document doesn't belong to one.

qualifiedName

A string containing the qualified name of the document to be created. A null value is treated the same as the empty string ("").

The format of the qualified name is prefix:localName or localName, where the parts are defined as:

prefix Optional: A "short alias" for the namespace. The prefix is optional, but if it is specified the namespaceURI parameter must also be specified. If the prefix is set to xml or xmlns, the namespaceURI must be set to http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace or http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/, respectively. Defaults to null.
localName: The local name of the document.

documentType Optional

The DocumentType of the document to be created. It defaults to null.

Return value

Exceptions

NamespaceError DOMException

Thrown if the namespaceURI value is:

not a valid namespace URI.
set to the empty string when prefix has a value.
not the value http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace or http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/ when prefix is set to xml or xmlns, respectively.

InvalidCharacterError DOMException

Thrown if either the prefix or localName is not valid:

The prefix must have at least one character, and cannot contain ASCII whitespace, NULL, /, or > (U+0000, U+002F, or U+003E, respectively).
The localName is a valid element name if it has a length of at least 1 and:
- it starts with an alphabet character and does not contain ASCII whitespace, NULL, /, or > (U+0000, U+002F, or U+003E, respectively).
- it starts with : (U+003A), _ (U+005F), or any characters in the range U+0080 to U+10FFFF (inclusive), and the remaining code points only include those same characters along with the ASCII alphanumeric characters, - (U+002D), and . (U+002E),

Note: Earlier versions of the specification were more restrictive, requiring that the qualifiedName be a valid XML name.

Examples

Basic usage

const doc = document.implementation.createDocument(
  "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml",
  "html",
  null,
);
const body = document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", "body");
body.setAttribute("id", "abc");
doc.documentElement.appendChild(body);
alert(doc.getElementById("abc")); // [object HTMLBodyElement]

DOMImplementation: createDocument() method