replaceChild Method

Replaces the specified old child node with the supplied new child node in the set of children of this node, and returns the old child node.

objXMLDOMNode = oXMLDOMNode.replaceChild(newChild, oldChild)

Parameters

newChild: Object. Address of the new child that is to replace the old child. If Null, oldChild is removed without a replacement.
oldChild: Object. Address of the old child that is to be replaced by the new child.

Return Value

Object. Returns the old child that is replaced.

Remarks

This operation depends on the value of the nodeType property:

NODE_ATTRIBUTE

This operation depends on the value of the newChild parameter:

NODE_ATTRIBUTE, NODE_CDATA_SECTION, NODE_COMMENT, NODE_DOCUMENT, NODE_DOCUMENT_TYPE, NODE_ELEMENT, NODE_ENTITY, NODE_NOTATION, NODE_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION	Returns an error. These node types cannot be children of an attribute.
NODE_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT	Replaces oldChild with the children of the document fragment in newChild and returns oldChild.
NODE_ENTITY_REFERENCE, NODE_TEXT	Replaces the specified oldChild with the supplied newChild and returns oldChild.
NODE_CDATA_SECTION, NODE_COMMENT, NODE_ENTITY, NODE_NOTATION, NODE_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION, NODE_TEXT	Returns an error. These node types either cannot have children or their children are read-only.

NODE_DOCUMENT

This operation depends on the value of the newChild parameter:

NODE_ATTRIBUTE, NODE_CDATA_SECTION, NODE_DOCUMENT, NODE_ENTITY, NODE_ENTITY_REFERENCE, NODE_NOTATION, NODE_TEXT	Returns an error. These nodes are not valid as children of a document node.
NODE_COMMENT, NODE_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION	Replaces the specified oldChild with the supplied newChild and returns oldChild.
NODE_DOCUMENT_TYPE, NODE_ELEMENT	Replaces oldChild with newChild and returns oldChild. Note, however, that by definition an XML document (the document node) can have only a single child. Therefore an error is returned if the document node already has a child.
NODE_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT	Replaces the specified oldChild with the children of the document fragment (newChild) and returns oldChild. Note that the insert operations are subject to the rules for child nodes and can fail if the document fragment children represent node types that cannot be inserted.
NODE_DOCUMENT_TYPE	Returns an error. The document type is read-only.

NODE_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT

This operation depends on the value of the newChild parameter:

NODE_ATTRIBUTE, NODE_DOCUMENT, NODE_DOCUMENT_TYPE	Returns an error. These nodes types are not valid as children of a document fragment.
NODE_CDATA_SECTION, NODE_COMMENT, NODE_ELEMENT, NODE_ENTITY_REFERENCE, NODE_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION, NODE_TEXT	Replaces the specified oldChild with the supplied newChild and returns oldChild.
NODE_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT	Replaces the specified oldChild with the children of the document fragment (newChild) and returns oldChild. Note that the insert operations are subject to the rules for child nodes and can fail if the document fragment children represent node types that cannot be inserted.
NODE_ENTITY, NODE_NOTATION	Returns an error. Entities and notations are read-only and cannot be inserted into a document.

NODE_ELEMENT

This operation depends on the value of the newChild parameter:

NODE_CDATA_SECTION, NODE_COMMENT, NODE_ELEMENT, NODE_ENTITY_REFERENCE, NODE_TEXT, NODE_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION	Replaces the specified oldChild with newChild and returns oldChild.
NODE_ATTRIBUTE, NODE_DOCUMENT, NODE_DOCUMENT_TYPE, NODE_ENTITY, NODE_NOTATION	Returns an error. These node types cannot be children of an element node.
NODE_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT	Replaces the specified oldChild with the children of the document fragment (newChild) and returns oldChild. Note that the insert operations are subject to the rules for child nodes and can fail if the document fragment children represent node types that cannot be inserted.
NODE_ENTITY_REFERENCE	Returns an error. Although the child nodes of an entity reference are the expanded entity, the children cannot be modified.

Example

The following VBScript example creates a new XMLDOMNode object, newElem, and replaces the specified child node with newElem:

Dim xmlDoc
Dim root
Dim newElem
Set xmlDoc = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument")
xmlDoc.async = False
xmlDoc.load("c:\books.xml")
Set root = xmlDoc.documentElement
Set newElem = xmlDoc.createElement("PAGES")
root.childNodes.item(1).replaceChild newElem, root.childNodes.item(1).childNodes.item(0)
MsgBox root.childNodes.item(1).xml

Applies To