DataTransferItem: kind property

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 read-only DataTransferItem.kind property returns the kind–a string or a file–of the DataTransferItem object representing the drag data item.

Value

A string representing the drag data item's kind. It must be one of the following values:

'file'

If the drag data item is a file.

'string'

If the kind of drag data item is a plain Unicode string.

Examples

This example shows the use of the kind property.

js
function dropHandler(ev) {
  console.log("Drop");
  ev.preventDefault();
  const data = event.dataTransfer.items;
  for (let i = 0; i < data.length; i += 1) {
    if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/plain")) {
      // This item is the target node
      data[i].getAsString((s) => {
        ev.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(s));
      });
    } else if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/html")) {
      // Drag data item is HTML
      console.log("… Drop: HTML");
    } else if (data[i].kind === "file" && data[i].type.match("^image/")) {
      // Drag data item is an image file
      const f = data[i].getAsFile();
      console.log("… Drop: File");
    }
  }
}

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# dom-datatransferitem-kind-dev

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also