document.createDocumentFragment

Creates a new empty DocumentFragment.

Syntax

var docFragment = 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

Specification	Status	Comment
DOM The definition of 'Document.createDocumentFragment()' in that specification.	Living Standard	No change
DOM4 The definition of 'Document.createDocumentFragment()' in that specification.	Recommendation	Clarifies that the node document of the created document fragment is the context object.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Document.createDocumentFragment()' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Document.createDocumentFragment()' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Document.createDocumentFragment()' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

See also

• document.implementation.createDocument()
• documentFragment