# Document Fragment to Stache Template
**URL:** https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82
**Category:** CanJS
**Created:** [December 22, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82 "2015-12-22T00:37:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@thecountofzero](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/thecountofzero)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/1 "2015-12-22T00:37:06Z")
Is there a simple way to take a document fragment and create a stache template that we can insert into the document?
---
### Author:  [@justinbmeyer](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/justinbmeyer)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/2 "2015-12-22T01:12:25Z")
What do you mean? Stache templates return document fragments.
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### Author:  [@thecountofzero](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/thecountofzero)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/3 "2015-12-22T01:47:03Z")
Let’s say I’ve created a document fragment using JavaScript. Said fragment contains custom elements which will be handled by a can.Component. Now I want to insert said fragment into the DOM. I was trying this late last night and most likely overlooked the simple solution…
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### Author:  [@justinbmeyer](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/justinbmeyer)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/4 "2015-12-22T01:53:26Z")
Components only work if their elements are created by a template. The fragment needs to be created by stache.
```auto
var frag = can.stache(" .... .... ....");
$("body").append(frag);
```
You can not (easily) programmatically create a fragment and have custom element behavior. Something like:
```auto
var frag = document.createDocumentFragment();
var custom = document.createElement('custom-element');
frag.appendChild(custom);
$("body").append(frag);
```
does not work.
---
### Author:  [@thecountofzero](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/thecountofzero)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/5 "2015-12-22T01:55:02Z")
That is what I feared. Ugh. Ok, I will re-think my plan of attack. Was more of a proof on concept anyhow. Thanks for the confirmation.
Hope all is well. I’ve been MIA for a while, but should be back in the fray…
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### Author:  [@justinbmeyer](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/justinbmeyer)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/document-fragment-to-stache-template/82/6 "2015-12-22T01:55:32Z")
You can initialize a Component manually. You just need to pass it the element and [tagData](http://canjs.com/docs/can.view.tagData.html):
```auto
new CustomElement(el, {.. tagData...})
```