xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)
xclip [OPTION] [FILE]...
Reads from standard in, or from one or more files, and makes the data available
as an X selection for pasting into X applications. Prints current X selection
to standard out.
-
-i, -in
- read text into X selection from standard input or files
(default)
-
-o, -out
- print the selection to standard out (generally for piping
to a file or program)
-
-f, -filter
- when xclip is invoked in the in mode with output level set
to silent (the defaults), the filter option will cause xclip to print the
text piped to standard in back to standard out unmodified
-
-r, -rmlastnl
- when the last character of the selection is a newline
character, remove it. Newline characters that are not the last character
in the selection are not affected. If the selection does not end with a
newline character, this option has no effect. This option is useful for
copying one-line output of programs like pwd to the clipboard to
paste it again into the command prompt without executing the line
immediately due to the newline character pwd appends.
-
-l, -loops
- number of X selection requests (pastes into X applications)
to wait for before exiting, with a value of 0 (default) causing xclip to
wait for an unlimited number of requests until another application
(possibly another invocation of xclip) takes ownership of the
selection
-
-t, -target
- specify a particular data format using the given target
atom. With -o the special target atom name "TARGETS" can
be used to get a list of valid target atoms for this selection. For more
information about target atoms refer to ICCCM section 2.6.2
-
-d, -display
- X display to use (e.g. "localhost:0"), xclip
defaults to the value in $ DISPLAY if this option is omitted
-
-h, -help
- show quick summary of options
- -selection
- specify which X selection to use, options are
"primary" to use XA_PRIMARY (default), "secondary" for
XA_SECONDARY or "clipboard" for XA_CLIPBOARD
- -version
- show version information
- -silent
- fork into the background to wait for requests, no
informational output, errors only (default)
- -quiet
- show informational messages on the terminal and run in the
foreground
- -verbose
- provide a running commentary of what xclip is doing
- -noutf8
- operate in legacy (i.e. non UTF-8) mode for backwards
compatibility (Use this option only when really necessary, as the old
behavior was broken)
xclip reads text from standard in or files and makes it available to other X
applications for pasting as an X selection (traditionally with the middle
mouse button). It reads from all files specified, or from standard in if no
files are specified. xclip can also print the contents of a selection to
standard out with the
-o option.
xclip was designed to allow tighter integration of X applications and command
line programs. The default action is to silently wait in the background for X
selection requests (pastes) until another X application places data in the
clipboard, at which point xclip exits silently. You can use the
-verbose option to see if and when xclip actually receives selection
requests from other X applications.
Options can be abbreviated as long as they remain unambiguous. For example, it
is possible to use
-d or
-disp instead of
-display.
However,
-v couldn't be used because it is ambiguous (it could be short
for
-verbose or
-version), so it would be interpreted as a
filename.
Note that only the first character of the selection specified with the
-selection option is important. This means that "p",
"sec" and "clip" would have the same effect as using
"primary", "secondary" or "clipboard"
respectively.
I hate man pages without examples!
uptime | xclip
Put your uptime in the X selection. Then middle click in an X application to
paste.
xclip -loops 10 -verbose /etc/motd
Exit after /etc/motd (message of the day) has been pasted 10 times. Show how
many selection requests (pastes) have been processed.
xclip -o > helloworld.c
Put the contents of the selection into a file.
xclip -t text/html index.html
Middle click in an X application supporting HTML to paste the contents of the
given file as HTML.
- DISPLAY
- X display to use if none is specified with the
-display option.
Please report any bugs, problems, queries, experiences, etc. directly to the
author.
Kim Saunders <
[email protected]> Peter Åstrand
<
[email protected]>