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DataTransfer: getData() method

The DataTransfer.getData() method retrieves drag data (as a string) 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

getData(format)

Parameters

format: A string representing the type of data to retrieve.

Return value

A string 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.

Caveats

Data availability

The HTML Drag and Drop Specification dictates a drag data store mode. This may result in unexpected behavior, being DataTransfer.getData() not returning an expected value, because not all browsers enforce this restriction.

During the dragstart and drop events, it is safe to access the data. For all other events, the data should be considered unavailable. Despite this, the items and their formats can still be enumerated.

Examples

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

HTML

html

<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

css

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

JavaScript

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();
  const data = dropevent.dataTransfer.getData("text");
  dropevent.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(data));
  document.getElementById("drag").style.color = "black";
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # dom-datatransfer-getdata-dev

Browser compatibility

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	WebView Android	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet
`getData`	3	12	3.5	8	≤12.1	4	≤37	18	4	≤12.1	3.2	1.0