The Range.extractContents() method moves contents of the Range from the document tree into a DocumentFragment.
Event listeners added using DOM Events are not retained during extraction. HTML attribute events are retained or duplicated as they are for the Node.cloneNode() method. HTML id attributes are also cloned, which can lead to an invalid document if a partially-selected node is extracted and appended to the document.
Partially selected nodes are cloned to include the parent tags necessary to make the document fragment valid.
var range = document.createRange();
range.selectNode(document.getElementsByTagName("div").item(0));
var documentFragment = range.extractContents();
document.body.appendChild(documentFragment);
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: .3em;
}
button {
font-size: 1.2em;
padding: .5em;
pointer-events: auto;
}
JavaScript
const list1 = document.getElementById('list1');
const list2 = document.getElementById('list2');
const button = document.getElementById('swap');
button.addEventListener('click', e => {
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
