ProcessingInstruction: target property

The read-only target property of the ProcessingInstruction interface represent the application to which the ProcessingInstruction is targeted.

For example:

html

<?xml version="1.0"?>

is a processing instruction whose target is xml.

Value

A string containing the name of the application.

Example

In an XML document

js

let parser = new DOMParser();
const doc = parser.parseFromString(
  '<?xml version="1.0"?><test/>',
  "application/xml"
);
const pi = doc.createProcessingInstruction(
  "xml-stylesheet",
  'href="mycss.css" type="text/css"'
);
doc.insertBefore(pi, doc.firstChild);

const output = document.querySelector("output");
output.textContent = `This processing instruction's target is: ${doc.firstChild.target}`;

In an HTML document

The processing instruction line will be considered, and represented, as a Comment object.

html

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<pre></pre>

js

const node = document.querySelector("pre").previousSibling.previousSibling;
const result = `Node with the processing instruction: ${node.nodeName}: ${node.nodeValue}\n`;
document.querySelector("pre").textContent = result;

Specifications

Specification
DOM Standard
# dom-processinginstruction-target

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also