ProcessingInstruction

{{APIRef("DOM")}} 

The ProcessingInstruction interface represents a processing instruction; that is, a {{domxref("Node")}}  which embeds an instruction targeting a specific application but that can be ignored by any other applications which don’t recognize the instruction.

[!WARNING] ProcessingInstruction nodes are only supported in XML documents, not in HTML documents. In these, a process instruction will be considered as a comment and be represented as a {{domxref("Comment")}}  object in the tree.

A processing instruction may be different than the XML declaration.

[!NOTE] User-defined processing instructions cannot begin with "xml", as xml-prefixed processing-instruction target names are reserved by the XML specification for particular, standard uses (see, for example, <?xml-stylesheet ?>.

For example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

is a processing instruction whose target is xml.

{{InheritanceDiagram}} 

Instance properties

This interface also inherits properties from its parent interfaces, {{domxref("CharacterData")}} , {{domxref("Node")}} , and {{domxref("EventTarget")}} .

• {{domxref("ProcessingInstruction.sheet")}}  {{ReadOnlyInline}} 

  • : Returns the associated {{domxref("StyleSheet")}}  object, if any; or null if none.

• {{domxref("ProcessingInstruction.target")}}  {{ReadOnlyInline}} 

  • : A name identifying the application to which the instruction is targeted.

Instance methods

This interface doesn’t have any specific method, but inherits methods from its parent interfaces, {{domxref("CharacterData")}} , {{domxref("Node")}} , and {{domxref("EventTarget")}} .

Specifications

{{Specifications}} 

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}} 

See also

• document.createProcessingInstruction()
• The DOM API