XMLSerializer.serializeToString()
 The XMLSerializer method serializeToString() constructs a string representing the specified DOM tree in XML form. 
Syntax
xmlString = anXMLSerializer.serializeToString(rootNode);

Parameters
 rootNode   The Node to use as the root of the DOM tree or subtree for which to construct an XML representation.   
Return value
A DOMString containing the XML representation of the specified DOM tree.
Exceptions
 
TypeError DOMException
   Thrown if the specified rootNode is not a compatible node type. The root node must be either Node or Attr.   
InvalidStateError DOMException
   Thrown if the tree could not be successfully serialized, probably due to issues with the content's compatibility with XML serialization.   
SyntaxError DOMException
   Thrown if a serialization of HTML was requested but could not succeed due to the content not being well-formed.   
Usage notes
Compatible node types

 The specified root node—and all of its descendants—must be compatible with the XML serialization algorithm. The root node itself must be either a Node or Attr object.   The following types are also permitted as descendants of the root node, in addition to Node and Attr:   DocumentType Document DocumentFragment Element Comment Text ProcessingInstruction Attr  If any other type is encountered, a TypeError exception is thrown.

Notes on the resulting XML

 There are some things worth noting about the XML output by serializeToString():    For XML serializations, Element and Attr nodes are always serialized with their namespaceURI intact. This may mean that a previously-specified prefix or default namespace may be dropped or altered.  The resulting XML is compatible with the HTML parser.  Elements in the HTML namespace that have no child nodes (thereby representing empty tags) are serialized with both begin and end tags ("<someelement></someelement>") instead of using the empty-element tag ("<someelement/>").  

Specifications

Specification
DOM Parsing and Serialization # dom-xmlserializer-serializetostring

Browser compatibility




Desktop
Mobile



Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Opera
Safari
WebView Android
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on IOS
Samsung Internet



serializeToString
1
12
1
9
≤12.1
3
1
18
4
≤12.1
1
1.0


See also
 Parsing and serializing XML  Serializing to HTML: Element.innerHTML and Element.outerHTML  Parsing HTML or XML to create a DOM tree: DOMParser
 


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Last modified: Oct 25, 2021, by MDN contributors


    
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