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DOMImplementation: createDocument() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

The DOMImplementation.createDocument() method creates and returns an XMLDocument.

Syntax

createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName)
createDocument(namespaceURI, qualifiedName, documentType)

Parameters

namespaceURI

A string containing the namespace URI of the document to be created, or null if the document doesn't belong to one.

qualifiedName

A string containing the qualified name, that is an optional prefix and colon plus the local root element name, of the document to be created. A null value is treated the same as the empty string ("").

documentType Optional

Is the DocumentType of the document to be created. It defaults to null.

Return value

The newly-created XMLDocument.

Examples

const doc = document.implementation.createDocument(
  "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml",
  "html",
  null,
);
const body = document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", "body");
body.setAttribute("id", "abc");
doc.documentElement.appendChild(body);
alert(doc.getElementById("abc")); // [object HTMLBodyElement]

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Opera Safari Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet WebView Android WebView on iOS
createDocument 1 12 1 ≤12.1 1 18 4 ≤12.1 1 1.0 4.4 1

See also

© 2005–2025 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMImplementation/createDocument