string to dom-nodes with support for old ie's and table-elements

stringToFragment.js

function stringToFragment(html){
    var tmpl = document.createElement('template');
    tmpl.innerHTML = html;
    if (tmpl.content == void 0){ // ie11
        var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();
        var isTableEl = /^[^\S]*?<(t(?:head|body|foot|r|d|h))/i.test(html);
        tmpl.innerHTML = isTableEl ? '<table>'+html : html;
        var els        = isTableEl ? tmpl.querySelector(RegExp.$1).parentNode.childNodes : tmpl.childNodes;
        while(els[0]) fragment.appendChild(els[0]);
        return fragment;
    }
    return tmpl.content;
}

// parses a string to a document.fragment
// supports old ie's (tested in ie11)
// and there, it supports table-elements like td, tr...
// 
// if you like only the first element, use it like this:
// stringToFragment('<img src="....">').firstChild;