DataTransfer.getData

The DataTransfer.getData() method retrieves drag data (as a DOMString) for the specified type. If the drag operation does not include data, this method returns an empty string.

Example data types are text/plain and text/uri-list.

Syntax

DOMString dataTransfer.getData(format);

Arguments

format

A DOMString representing the type of data to retrieve.

Return value

DOMString

A DOMString representing the drag data for the specified format. If the drag operation has no data or the operation has no data for the specified format, this method returns an empty string.

Example

This example shows the use of the DataTransfer object's getData() and setData() methods.

HTML Content

<div id="div1" ondrop="drop(event)" ondragover="allowDrop(event)">
    <span id="drag" draggable="true" ondragstart="drag(event)">drag me to the other box</span>
</div>
<div id="div2" ondrop="drop(event)" ondragover="allowDrop(event)"></div>

CSS Content

#div1, #div2 {
    width:100px;
    height:50px;
    padding:10px;
    border:1px solid #aaaaaa;
}

JavaScript Content

function allowDrop(allowdropevent) {
    allowdropevent.target.style.color = 'blue';
    allowdropevent.preventDefault();
}

function drag(dragevent) {
    dragevent.dataTransfer.setData("text", dragevent.target.id);
    dragevent.target.style.color = 'green';
}

function drop(dropevent) {
    dropevent.preventDefault();
    var data = dropevent.dataTransfer.getData("text");
    dropevent.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(data));
    document.getElementById("drag").style.color = 'black';
}

Result

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of 'getData()' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5.1 The definition of 'getData()' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

[1] Before Firefox 48, this method always returned an empty list if the MIME type was not in a white list.

See also

• Drag and drop
• Drag Operations
• Recommended Drag Types
• Dragging and Dropping Multiple Items