XML::LibXML::Attr(3)

💖 XML::LibXML::Attr — the XML::LibXML Attribute Class 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for XML::LibXML::Attr(3) — it lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section, and it's literally the glow-up guide for attribute nodes. no cap. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

use XML::LibXML;
# Only methods specific to Attribute nodes are listed here,
# see the XML::LibXML::Node manpage for other methods

$attr = XML::LibXML::Attr->new($name [,$value]);
$string = $attr->getValue();
$string = $attr->value;
$attr->setValue( $string );
$node = $attr->getOwnerElement();
$attr->setNamespace($nsURI, $prefix);
$bool = $attr->isId;
$string = $attr->serializeContent;

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so basically this is the interface for handling Attributes like they're ordinary nodes — very "everyone's equal, even the little ones" of it. 🫶

the naming of the class is fully faithful to the W3C DOM documentation, so if you know that, you already know the vibe.

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👑 METHODS 👑

this class inherits from XML::LibXML::Node, and the docs for inherited methods are not listed here (go read the parent, she's serving too). 💅

a lot of these functions are extensively documented in the DOM Level 3 specification (<http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/>). please refer to the spec for the extended lore, bestie. 📖

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🦋 new

$attr = XML::LibXML::Attr->new($name [,$value]);

class constructor, iconic behavior. ✨

real talk though: if you need to work with ISO encoded strings, you should always use the createAttribute of XML::LibXML::Document instead. don't do it any other way, i'm begging. 😭

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🍓 getValue

$string = $attr->getValue();

returns the value stored for the attribute. 💖

if undef gets returned, that means the attribute has no value — which is different from being "not specified". the distinction is real, don't blur it. 🙈

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🧚 value

$string = $attr->value;

alias for getValue(). same energy, shorter name. slay. 💅

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🌈 setValue

$attr->setValue( $string );

this is needed to set a new attribute value. periodt.

if ISO encoded strings are passed as the parameter, the node has to be bound to a document — otherwise the encoding might be done incorrectly. so like, bind first, then encode. no skipping steps. 💀

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💜 getOwnerElement

$node = $attr->getOwnerElement();

returns the node the attribute belongs to. 🫶

if the attribute is not bound to a node, undef will be returned. and here's the tea: overwriting the underlying implementation, the parentNode function will return undef — instead of the owner element. yes, that's intentional. 👑

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🎀 setNamespace

$attr->setNamespace($nsURI, $prefix);

this function tries to bound the attribute to a given namespace. okay so here's the whole breakdown, listen carefully:

• if $nsURI is undefined or empty, the function discards any previous association of the attribute with a namespace.
• if the namespace was not previously declared in the context of the attribute, this function will fail. in that case you may wish to call setNamespace() on the ownerElement instead. 👈
• if the namespace URI is non-empty and declared in the context of the attribute, but only with a different (non-empty) prefix, then the attribute is still bound to the namespace — but it gets a different prefix than $prefix.
• the function also fails if the prefix is empty but the namespace URI is not — because unprefixed attributes should by definition belong to no namespace. that's just the rules, babe. 💅

this function returns 1 on success, 0 otherwise. ✨

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⭐ isId

$bool = $attr->isId;

determine whether an attribute is of type ID. 🔍

• for documents with a DTD, this info is only available if DTD loading/validation has been requested.
• for HTML documents parsed with the HTML parser, ID detection is done automatically. 🤖
• in XML documents, all xml:id attributes are considered to be of type ID. periodt.

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🌸 serializeContent($docencoding)

$string = $attr->serializeContent;

heads up: this function is not part of DOM API. 🚫

it returns attribute content in the form in which it serializes into XML — that is, with all meta-characters properly quoted and with raw entity references (except for entities expanded during parse time). so it's giving... exact XML realness. 💖

setting the optional $docencoding flag to 1 enforces document encoding for the output string (which is then passed to Perl as a byte string). otherwise the string is passed to Perl as (UTF-8 encoded) characters. pick your fighter. ⚔️

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💅 AUTHORS 💅

Matt Sergeant, Christian Glahn, Petr Pajas — the founding mothers, we stan. 👑

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

2.0213

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🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

• 2001-2007, AxKit.com Ltd.
• 2002-2006, Christian Glahn.
• 2006-2009, Petr Pajas.

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🌈 LICENSE 🌈

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

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okay that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖✨ this was XML::LibXML::Attr(3), brought to you by perl v5.42.2 on 2026-05-25, courtesy of User Contributed Perl Documentation. go forth and attribute responsibly. mwah. 🫶💋