Re: The future of XML related technologies in Mozilla

Ian Hickson wrote:
>> I maintain that it still makes the simple use case of "serialize this node and
>> all its descendants" nontrivial.  Compare:
...
>>   var str = (new DOMSerializer()).serializeToString(node);
...
> No no, innerHTML would apply to everything, so the equivalent would be:
> 
>    var str = node.innerHTML;

OK, I sense a significant communications failure here.  Let's say we have:

   <div id="foo">Text</div>

and script as follows:

   var node = document.getElementById("foo");
   var str = (new DOMSerializer()).serializeToString(node);
   var str2 = node.innerHTML.

Then str is the string:  '<div id="foo">Text</div>'
while str2 is the string:  'Text'

To get the string in |str| using innerHTML, you would have to use the 
code with importNode and company that I posted in my previous post. 
This is why outerHTML exists, fwiw.

> (Currently the spec says it applies to HTMLElement only, but I'd be happy 
> to put it on Element if you think there's a use case for that.)

There's absolutely a use case for that, imo.

-Boris