Range: extractContents() method
The extractContents() method of the Range interface is similar to a combination of Range.cloneContents() and Range.deleteContents(). It removes the child Nodes of the range from the document, clones them, and returns them as a new DocumentFragment object. For partially selected nodes, only the selected text is deleted, but all containing parent nodes up to the common ancestor are cloned as well, resulting in two copies of these nodes, one in the original document and one in the extracted fragment.
Syntax
js
extractContents()
Parameters
None.
Return value
A DocumentFragment object.
Examples
Basic example
js
const range = document.createRange();
range.selectNode(document.getElementsByTagName("div").item(0));
const documentFragment = range.extractContents();
document.body.appendChild(documentFragment);
Moving items between containers
This example lets you move items between two containers. Select one or more item, and then click "swap" to move them to the opposite container.
HTML
html
<p id="list1">123456</p>
<button id="swap">Swap selected item(s)</button>
<p id="list2">abcdef</p>
CSS
css
body {
pointer-events: none;
}
p {
border: 1px solid;
font-size: 2em;
padding: 0.3em;
}
button {
font-size: 1.2em;
padding: 0.5em;
pointer-events: auto;
}
JavaScript
js
const list1 = document.getElementById("list1");
const list2 = document.getElementById("list2");
const button = document.getElementById("swap");
button.addEventListener("click", (e) => {
const selection = window.getSelection();
for (let i = 0; i < selection.rangeCount; i++) {
const range = selection.getRangeAt(i);
if (
range.commonAncestorContainer === list1 ||
range.commonAncestorContainer.parentNode === list1
) {
const documentFragment = range.extractContents();
list2.appendChild(documentFragment);
} else if (
range.commonAncestorContainer === list2 ||
range.commonAncestorContainer.parentNode === list2
) {
const documentFragment = range.extractContents();
list1.appendChild(documentFragment);
}
}
});