# XML DOM compareDocumentPosition() Method

Element Object

## Definition and Usage

The compareDocumentPosition() method compares the document position of the current node, with a specified node, according to the document order.

## Syntax

elementNode.compareDocumentPostition(node)

Parameter | Description
--- | ---
node | Required. Specifies the node to compare with the current node

## Example

The following code fragment loads "books.xml" into xmlDoc using loadXMLDoc() and compares the first and the third <book> nodes:

## Example

xmlDoc=loadXMLDoc("books.xml");
x=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('book')[0];
y=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('book')[2];
document.write(x.compareDocumentPosition(y));

Output:

4
Try it yourself »

Firefox, and most other browsers, will treat empty white-spaces or new lines as text nodes, Internet Explorer will not. So, in the example above, Mozilla browsers will output 4, while Internet Explorer will output 2.

To read more about the differences between browsers, visit our DOM Browsers chapter in our XML DOM Tutorial.

Element Object

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