each object that uses 
 these attributes and methods. No DOM objects correspond directly to 
 <code>CharacterData</code>, though <code>Text</code> and others do 
 inherit the interface from it. All <code>offsets</code> in this interface 
 start from <code>0</code>.
 <p>As explained in the <code>DOMString</code> interface, text strings in 
 the DOM are represented in UTF-16, i.e. as a sequence of 16-bit units. In 
 the following, the term 16-bit units is used whenever necessary to 
 indicate that indexing on