Range: extractContents() method

The extractContents() method of the Range interface is similar to a combination of cloneContents() and 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

extractContents()

Parameters

None.

Return value

A DocumentFragment object.

Examples

Basic example

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

<p id="list1">123456</p>
<button id="swap">Swap selected item(s)</button>
<p id="list2">abcdef</p>

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

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);
    }
  }
});

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• The DOM interfaces index