Document.createDocumentFragment()

Creates a new empty DocumentFragment.

Syntax

var <var>docFragment</var> = document.createDocumentFragment();

docFragment is a reference to an empty DocumentFragment object.

Description

DocumentFragments are DOM Nodes. They are never part of the main DOM tree. The usual use case is to create the document fragment, append elements to the document fragment and then append the document fragment to the DOM tree. In the DOM tree, the document fragment is replaced by all its children.

Since the document fragment is in memory and not part of the main DOM tree, appending children to it does not cause page reflow (computation of element's position and geometry). Consequently, using document fragments often results in better performance.

Example

var ul = document.getElementsByTagName("ul")[0]; // assuming it exists
var docfrag = document.createDocumentFragment();
var browserList = ["Internet Explorer", "Firefox", "Safari",
    "Chrome", "Opera"];

browserList.forEach(function(e) {
  var li = document.createElement("li");
  li.textContent = e;
  docfrag.appendChild(li);
});

ul.appendChild(docfrag);
// a list with well-known web browsers

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• document.implementation.createDocument()
• documentFragment