1326

Is it possible to pipe to/from the clipboard in Bash?

Whether it is piping to/from a device handle or using an auxiliary application, I can't find anything.

For example, if /dev/clip was a device linking to the clipboard we could do:

cat /dev/clip        # Dump the contents of the clipboard
cat foo > /dev/clip  # Dump the contents of "foo" into the clipboard
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  • You have tagged this as Linux, and Macos: MacOS does not use Linux. Do you mean Gnu/Linux with X11, Gnu/Linux with wayland, Gnu/Linux at console (no gfx), Gnu/Linux via ssh, or Mac OSX? Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 17:48

32 Answers 32

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1142

There are a wealth of clipboards you could be dealing with. I expect you're probably a Linux user who wants to put stuff in the X Windows primary clipboard. Usually, the clipboard you want to talk to has a utility that lets you talk to it.

In the case of X, there's xclip (and others). xclip -selection c will send data to the clipboard that works with Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V in most applications.

If you're on Mac OS X, there's pbcopy. E.g., cat example.txt | pbcopy

If you're in Linux terminal mode (no X) then look into gpm or Screen which has a clipboard. Try the Screen command readreg.

Under Windows 10+ or Cygwin, use /dev/clipboard or clip.

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16 Comments

It is sad that GNU/Linux have no such a device as /dev/clipboard, and forces to install either xclip either gpm which is missing by default at least in Kubuntu (I guess in most other distros too).
Under X11, there is also xsel which operates on the X selection by default. So you can echo hello | xsel or xsel|wc and so on without using a commmand-line switch.
any idea for wayland ?
@kr85 clip.exe is a builtin windows program which git-bash has access to, but it only works one-way (copying, not pasting). If you're using git-bash, then you're also on Windows.
@crimson_king on wayland i now use wl-clipboard. It works like a charm github.com/bugaevc/wl-clipboard
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366

Make sure you are using alias xclip="xclip -selection c" or else you won't be able to paste using Ctrl+v.

Example: After running echo -n test | xclip, Ctrl+v will paste test

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9 Comments

How would one go about pasting it without that command argument?
xclip -selection clipboard -o
since I go back and forth between osx and linux a lot I have the following in my dotfiles. alias pbcopy="xclip -selection c" alias pbpaste="xclip -selection clipboard -o" Hope that helps.
@ApockofFork, xclip isnt adding a newline, echo is. Try printf test | xclip -i -selection clipboard. (printf doesnt add a newline unless you write 'test\n'.)
Or use echo -n instead of printf.
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256

Under Wayland

# Install using your package manager:
apt-get install wl-clipboard
pacman -S wl-clipboard
dnf install wl-clipboard

# Now, you can use:
$ echo foo | wl-copy
$ wl-paste
foo

If you do not have access to apt-get nor pacman, nor dnf, sources are hosted on GitHub.

Under the X Window System

# Install using your package manager:
apt-get install xclip
pacman -S xclip
dnf install xclip

# Then, add aliases for Bash:
echo 'alias setclip="xclip -selection c"' >> ~/.bash_aliases
echo 'alias getclip="xclip -selection c -o"' >> ~/.bash_aliases

# Or, for fish shell:
echo 'abbr setclip "xclip -selection c"' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish
echo 'abbr getclip "xclip -selection c -o"' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

# Now, you can use (don't forget to reload your configs!):
$ echo foo | setclip
$ getclip
foo

If you do not have access to apt-get nor pacman, nor dnf, the sources are available on SourceForge.

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Comments

194

On macOS, use the built-in pbcopy and pbpaste commands.

For example, if you run

cat ~/.bashrc | pbcopy

the contents of the ~/.bashrc file will be available for pasting with the Cmd + V shortcut.

To save the current clipboard to a file, redirect the output pbpaste to a file:

pbpaste > my_clipboard.txt
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3 Comments

pbcopy < my_clipboard.txt can also be used for copying contents from a file.
Nice! I usually do cat my_clipboard.txt | pbcopy to copy the contents of a file to my clipboard, but pbcopy < my_clipboard.txt is way smoother.
Perhaps see also useless use of cat
70

2018 answer

Use clipboard-cli. It works with macOS, Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Android without any real issues.

Install it with:

npm install -g clipboard-cli

Then you can do:

echo foo | clipboard

If you want, you can alias to cb by putting the following in your .bashrc, .bash_profile, or .zshrc:

alias cb=clipboard
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5 Comments

Are you sure that it's a safe npm package?
@Stas, I would hope so, it's made by Sindresorhus (github.com/sindresorhus), the most prolific node contributor. He's responsible for the Ava testing library, the xo linter, Yeoman, and countless other projects. He's also responsible for countless small libraries like this, that collectively put his code on nearly every JS-using website on the internet. That's not to say he couldn't be compromised; just that the amount of eyes on his repos and his own reputation make it much less likely than most random npm repos.
Works with Yarn too: yarn global add clipboard-cli
Can't use it on a server through SSH because it needs a working UI (github.com/sindresorhus/clipboardy/issues/63). Useless without it as far as I'm concerned.
Didn't work on FreeBSD with Wayland because it depends on xsel (which is X)
56

xsel on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

# append to clipboard:
cat 'the file with content' | xsel -ab

# or type in the happy face :) and ...
echo 'the happy face :) and content' | xsel -ib

# show clipboard
xsel -ob

# Get more info:
man xsel

Install

sudo apt-get install xsel
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2 Comments

How does this differ from echo "foo" | xclip -selection c?
There are some answers on this Ask Ubuntu answer, but mainly xsel and xclip are equivalent in every way except that xclip can read/write files by name, but xsel requires shell redirection if you want to access a file.
42

Try

xclip

xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)

man

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41

On the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) you can copy to the clipboard with clip.exe:

cat file | clip.exe

Keep in mind to use the | pipe command. And not a > command, since that will not work.

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22

Install the xcopy utility and when you're in the Terminal, input:

Copy

Thing_you_want_to_copy | xclip -selection c

Paste

myvariable=$(xclip -selection clipboard -o)

I noticed a lot of answers recommended pbpaste and pbcopy. If you're into those utilities, but for some reason they are not available in your repository, you can always make an alias for the xcopy commands and call them pbpaste and pbcopy.

alias pbcopy="xclip -selection c"
alias pbpaste="xclip -selection clipboard -o"

So then it would look like this:

Thing_you_want_to_copy | pbcopy
myvariable=$(pbpaste)

An answer located in one of the comments written by a user called doug work for me. Since I found it so helpful, I decided to restate in an answer.

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17

Here is a ready-to-use Bash script for reading the clipboard which works on multiple platforms.

Please edit the script here if you add functionality (e.g., more platforms).

#!/bin/bash
# WF 2013-10-04
#
# Multi-platform clipboard read access
#
# Supports
#   Mac OS X
#   Git shell / Cygwin (Windows)
#   Linux (e.g., Ubuntu)

#
# Display an error
#
error() {
  echo "error: $1" 1>&2
  exit 1
}

#
# getClipboard
#
function getClipboard() {
 os=`uname`
      case $os in
        # Git Bash  (Windows)
        MINGW32_NT-6.1)
          cat /dev/clipboard;;
        # Mac OS X
        Darwin*)
          pbpaste;;
        # Linux
        Linux*)
          # Works only for the X clipboard - a check that X is running might be due
          xclip -o;;
        *)
          error "unsupported os $os";;
      esac
}

tmp=/tmp/clipboard$$
getClipboard >$tmp
cat $tmp
# Comment out for debugging
rm $tmp
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Comments

13

For Mac only:

echo "Hello World" | pbcopy
pbpaste

These are located /usr/bin/pbcopy and /usr/bin/pbpaste.

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11

On Windows (with Cygwin) try cat /dev/clipboard or echo "foo" > /dev/clipboard as mentioned in this article.

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4 Comments

As user @maep mentioned in a separate comment, newer versions of Windows (I can only confirm for Win10) can simply pipe to clip. I'm using msysgit 1.9.5 and this worked.
echo "foo" > /dev/clipboard seems to destroy newlines completely (not a \r\n \n thing but completely gone)
broken link fix (couldn't edit): pgrs.net/2008/01/11/command-line-clipboard-access
Yeah @user1529413, seems to be a bit flaky too. printf " Hi \r\n there" > /dev/clipboard; sed 's/^\(.*\)/CLIP: "\1"/' /dev/clipboard sometimes shows CLIP: " HI ", and sometimes doesn't show anything at all. It's like it goes to sleep. :D
8

I just searched the same stuff in my KDE environment.

Feel free to use clipcopy and clippaste.

KDE:

> echo "TEST CLIP FROM TERMINAL" | clipcopy
> clippaste
TEST CLIP FROM TERMINAL
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7

I have found a good reference: How to target multiple selections with xclip

In my case, I would like to paste content on the clipboard and also to see what is been pasted there, so I used also the tee command with a file descriptor:

echo "just a test" | tee >(xclip -i -selection clipboard)

>() is a form of process substitution. Bash replaces each with the path to a file descriptor which is connected to the standard input of the program within the parentheses.

The teecommand forks your command allowing you to "pipe its content" and see the result on standard output "stdout".

You can also create aliases to get and write on the clipboard, allowing you to use "pbcopy" and "pbpaste" as if you where on Mac. In my case, as I use Z shell (zsh), I have this in my aliases file:

(( $+commands[xclip] )) && {
    alias pbpaste='xclip -i -selection clipboard -o'
    alias pbcopy='xclip -selection clipboard'
}

The (( $+command[name] )) in Z shell tests if the command "name" is installed on your system, and then both aliases are grouped with {}. The && is a binary AND; if a then b, hence if you have xclip then the aliases will be set.

echo "another test" | tee >(pbcopy)

To get your clipboard content, just type:

pbpaste | "any-command-you-need-here"
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7

On Wayland, xcopy doesn't seem to work. Use wl-clipboard instead.

E.g., on Fedora:

sudo dnf install wl-clipboard

tree | wl-copy

wl-paste > file
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6

This is a simple Python script that does just what you need:

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

# Clipboard storage
clipboard_file = '/tmp/clipboard.tmp'

if(sys.stdin.isatty()): # Should write clipboard contents out to stdout
    with open(clipboard_file, 'r') as c:
        sys.stdout.write(c.read())
elif(sys.stdout.isatty()): # Should save stdin to clipboard
    with open(clipboard_file, 'w') as c:
        c.write(sys.stdin.read())

Save this as an executable somewhere in your path (I saved it to /usr/local/bin/clip. You can pipe in stuff to be saved to your clipboard...

echo "Hello World" | clip

And you can pipe what's in your clipboard to some other program...

clip | cowsay
 _____________
< Hello World >
 -------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Running it by itself will simply output what's in the clipboard.

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4 Comments

This works when you're on a single computer, but won't allow you to copy things between computers.
seems only ` echo str > tmpfile` and cat tmpfile , not clipboard operation. //same as @horta answers.
this doesn't seem to set clipboard variable, so I cannot paste the content in other application - it's not a real clipboard!
Didn't work on git bash terminal with windows python 3.10.7 running. Too bad. I tried printf " Hi \r\n there" | pclip; pclip | sed 's/^\(.*\)$/CLIP: "\1"/' and nothing came out.
5 
  xsel -b

Does the job for X Window, and it is mostly already installed. A look in the man page of xsel is worth the effort.

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5

Copy and paste to clipboard in Windows (Cygwin):

See:

$ clip.exe -?

CLIP
Description:
    Redirects output of command line tools to the Windows clipboard.
    This text output can then be pasted into other programs.
Parameter List:
/?                  Displays this help message.
Examples:
DIR | CLIP          Places a copy of the current directory
                        listing into the Windows clipboard.
CLIP < README.TXT   Places a copy of the text from readme.txt
                        on to the Windows clipboard.

Also getclip (it can be used instead of Shift + Ins!) and putclip (echo oaeuoa | putclip.exe to put it into clip) exist.

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1 Comment

Can't put stuff into the clipboard though, unfortunately.
5

In Linux this works:

cat filename | xclip
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3 Comments

But already covered by previous answers(?).
@PeterMortensen yes and no. When reading stackoverflow.com/a/4208191/11154841 and stackoverflow.com/a/27456981/11154841, you think that you need to make an alias like alias xclip="xclip -selection c". But xclip does not seem to need to have this alias, see also How to pipe text from command line to the clipboard - Super User in 2010.
@PeterMortensen Just posted two clipDump functions for exploring -o -t TARGETS options and explaining difference between primary, secondary and clipboard storages. As well a little -i use sample.
5

pbcopy is built into OS X:

Copying the content of file .bash_profile:

cat ~/.bash_profile | pbcopy
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4

Yesterday I found myself with the question: "How can I share the clipboard between different user sessions?". When switching between sessions with Ctrl + Alt + F7 - Ctrl + Alt + F8, in fact, you can't paste what you copied.

I came up with the following quick & dirty solution, based on a named pipe. It is surely quite bare and raw, but I found it functional:

user1@host:~$ mkfifo /tmp/sharedClip

then in the sending terminal

user1@host:~$ cat > /tmp/sharedClip

last, in the receiving terminal:

user2@host:~$ cat /tmp/sharedClip

Now, you type or paste anything in the first terminal, and (after hitting Return), it will appear immediately in the receiving terminal, from where you can copy and paste again anywhere you like.

Of course this doesn't just strictly take the content from user1's clipboard to make it available in user2's clipboard, but rather it requires an additional pair of Paste & Copy clicks.

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1 Comment

Doesn't seem too surprising. Two different X servers = two different selection sets. However, you could set up a script that takes input/output via xsel/xclip. For example, one end listens to see if any of the selections changed, and then automatically pipes it (via the named FIFO) over to the other script, which is listening to one or more pipes, which inserts it into its own X selection. Copying text would thus automatically result in the same text appearing in the other X session's selection. And don't forget about $DISPLAY.
4

There are a couple of ways. Some of the ways that have been mentioned include (I think) tmux, Screen, Vim, Emacs, and the shell. I don't know Emacs or Screen, so I'll go over the other three.

Tmux

While not an X selection, tmux has a copy mode accessible via prefix-[ (prefix is Ctrl + B by default). The buffer used for this mode is separate and exclusive to tmux, which opens up quite a few possibilities and makes it more versatile than the X selections in the right situations.

To exit this mode, hit Q; to navigate, use your Vim or Emacs binding (default = Vim), so hjkl for movement, v/V/C-v for character/line/block selection, etc. When you have your selection, hit Enter to copy and exit the mode.

To paste from this buffer, use prefix-].

Shell

Any installation of X11 seems to come with two programs by default: xclip and xsel (kind of like how it also comes with both startx and xinit). Most of the other answers mention xclip, and I really like xsel for its brevity, so I'm going to cover xsel.

From xsel(1x):

Input options \

-a, --append \

append standard input to the selection. Implies -i.

-f, --follow \

append to selection as standard input grows. Implies -i.

-i, --input \

read standard input into the selection.

Output options \

-o, --output \

write the selection to standard output.

Action options \

-c, --clear \

clear the selection. Overrides all input options.

-d, --delete \

Request that the current selection be deleted. This not only clears the selection, but also requests to the program in which the selection resides that the selected contents be deleted. Overrides all input options.

Selection options \

-p, --primary \

operate on the PRIMARY selection (default).

-s, --secondary \

operate on the SECONDARY selection.

-b, --clipboard \

operate on the CLIPBOARD selection.

And that's about all you need to know. p (or nothing) for PRIMARY, s for SECONDARY, b for CLIPBOARD, o for output.

Example: say I want to copy the output of foo from a TTY and paste it to a webpage for a bug report. To do this, it would be ideal to copy to/from the TTY/X session. So the question becomes how do I access the clipboard from the TTY?

For this example, we'll assume the X session is on display :1.

$ foo -v
Error: not a real TTY
details:
blah blah @ 0x0000000040abeaf4
blah blah @ 0x0000000040abeaf8
blah blah @ 0x0000000040abeafc
blah blah @ 0x0000000040abeb00
...
$ foo -v | DISPLAY=:1 xsel -b # copies it into clipboard of display :1

Then I can Ctrl + V it into the form as per usual.

Now say that someone on the support site gives me a command to run to fix the problem. It's complicated and long.

$ DISPLAY=:1 xsel -bo
sudo foo --update --clear-cache --source-list="http://foo-software.com/repository/foo/debian/ubuntu/xenial/164914519191464/sources.txt"
$ $(DISPLAY=:1 xsel -bo)
Password for braden:
UPDATING %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 100.00%
Clearing cache...
Fetching sources...
Reticulating splines...
Watering trees...
Climbing mountains...
Looking advanced...
Done.
$ foo
Thank you for your order. A pizza should arrive at your house in the next 20 minutes. Your total is $6.99

Pizza ordering seems like a productive use of the command line.

...moving on.

Vim

If compiled with +clipboard (This is important! Check your vim --version), Vim should have access to the X PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD selections. The two selections are accessible from the * and + registers, respectively, and may be written to and read from at your leisure the same as any other register.

For example:

:%y+    ; copy/yank (y) everything (%) into the CLIPBOARD selection (+)
"+p     ; select (") the CLIPBOARD selection (+) and paste/put it
ggVG"+y ; Alternative version of the first example

If your copy of Vim doesn't directly support access to X selections, though, it's not the end of the world. You can just use the xsel technique as described in the last section.

:r ! xsel -bo ; read  (r) from the stdout of (!) `xsel -bo`
:w ! xsel -b  ; write (w) to the stdin of    (!) `xsel -b`

Bind a couple key combos and you should be good.

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4 Comments

Definitely always remember to use DISPLAY= when calling an X application from a non-X environment. X apps need the DISPLAY environment variable to figure out which server (or is there just one server handling multiple sessions?) they're talking to. Try DISPLAY=:1 firefox (or whatever your display ID may be; mine just happens to be :1) from a TTY, for example.
For me the choice in my environment was :%y+ in VIM.
Xubuntu 22.04.3 LTS no xsel or xclip is installed by default.
I thought Wayland was supposed to be a drop-in replacement for X11? Kinda dumb to just delete a whole program and rename it to wl-copy
2

A few Windows programs I wrote years ago. They allow you dump, push, append and print the clipboard. It works like this:

dumpclip | perl -pe "s/monkey/chimp/g;" | pushclip

It includes source code: cmd_clip.zip

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2 Comments

Link is dead. Too bad.
@Adrian : just downloaded cmd_clip.zip. Now ... do I trust unzipping something from the wild-wild-web (-;?
2

From this thread, there is an option which does not require installing any gclip/xclip/xsel third-party software.

A Perl script (since Perl is usually always installed)

use Win32::Clipboard;
print Win32::Clipboard::GetText();
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4 Comments

How would I use this? Save script into PATH and pipe into it? I'm trying to write dropbox cli wrapper to copy sharing links, so I just need it to handle text.
@jena Example: metacpan.org/pod/Win32::Clipboard or perlmonks.org/?node_id=143637 or bribes.org/perl/docfr/win32clipboard.html.
Doesn't work with git bash (cpan is broken and won't download anything) or MSYS2 (cpan did attempt it, but said that the OS isn't supported).
@Adrian True. For Windows (even from a Git bash session), I would call an executable (compiled in Go) which uses win32 DLL calls to read Windows clipboard. That way, I can copy/paste.
2

The Ruby oneliner inspired me to try with Python.

Say we want a command that indents whatever is in the clipboard with four spaces. It is perfect for sharing snippets on Stack Overflow.

$ pbpaste | python -c "import sys
 for line in sys.stdin:
   print(f'    {line}')" | pbcopy

That's not a typo. Python needs newlines to do a for loop. We want to alter the lines in one pass to avoid building up an extra array in memory.

If you don't mind building the extra array try:

$ pbpaste | python -c "import sys; print(''.join([f'    {l}' for l in sys.stdin]))" | pbcopy

but honestly awk is better for this than python. I defined this alias in my ~/.bashrc file

alias indent="pbpaste | awk '{print \"    \"\$0}' | pbcopy"

Now when I run indent, whatever is in my clipboard is indented.

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3 Comments

You can just drop the brackets and use a generator expression instead of a list comprehension. ''.join(f' {l}' for l in sys.stdin) -- also for most folks python will point to python2 on MacOS. So, you may want to specify python3 instead.
What is "the Ruby oneliner"? What are you referring to? Another answer? Or something else? Please respond by editing (changing) your answer, not here in comments (without "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today).
@HarryMoreno : I usually just do the list comprehension one. Like my standard shell function to normalize UTF8 back to NFC form, I use :::::::::: ::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::: :::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::: python3 -c 'import sys; import unicodedata as __;\ ___ = "";\ [ print(__.normalize("NFC", _), end = ___) for _ in sys.stdin ]' ::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::: those annoying backslashes represent a literal backslash '\' followed by \n, since python loves complaining abt indentation, which makes it REALLY inconvenient to work w/ 4 shell 1-liners
2

For mac you can use this function which uses pbcopy and pbpaste, but a little easier:

Add this to your .bashrc or .zshrc:

clp() {
  if [[ -z "$1" ]]
  then
    # No input - act as paste
    pbpaste;
  else
    # Input exists - act as copy
    echo "$1" | pbcopy;
  fi
}

To copy use clp "Content" and to paste use clp

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2

My tests and explanation about clipboards and xclip usage.

Introduction

From man xclip:

  -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)
...
  -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 tar‐
         get atoms refer to ICCCM section 2.6.2
...
  -selection
         specify  which X selection to use, options are "primary" to use XA_PRI‐
         MARY  (default),  "secondary"  for  XA_SECONDARY  or  "clipboard"   for
         XA_CLIPBOARD

There are 3 differents clipboards:

  • primary for XA_PRIMARY, they could be abbreviated p, this clipboard used for storing information copied by Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X.
  • seconday for XA_SECONDARY, they could be abbreviated s (I'm not sure where this clipboard is used) and
  • clipboard for XA_CLIPBOARD which is used immediately when some text are selected (by left mouse button or any VIM or EMACS trapping method.) and could be pasted by simple click on middle mouse button.

Dump ALL clipboard informations

Well, for showing what are precisely stored, I wrote this:

clipDump () {
    local tgts tgt clip errstr
    local -i errfd
    mapfile -t tgts < <(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -o -t TARGETS)
    for tgt in "${tgts[@]}"; do
        exec {errfd}<> <(:)
        clip="$(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -t $tgt -o 2>&$errfd)"
        IFS= read -ru $errfd -t .01 errstr
        exec {errfd}>&-
        printf '%-30s: %q\e[31m%q\e[0m\n' $'\e[44;30m'"$tgt"$'\e[0m' "$clip" "$errstr"
    done
}

Note: I use printf %q in order to prevent binary data to polute output. This will translate newlines into \n and so on.

Immediately after pasted this, I'v tried:

clipDump c

TIMESTAMP         : 1695759029''
TARGETS           : $'TIMESTAMP\nTARGETS\nMULTIPLE\nSAVE_TARGETS\ntext/html\ntex
t/_moz_htmlcontext\ntext/_moz_htmlinfo\nUTF8_STRING\nCOMPOUND_TEXT\nTEXT\nSTRING
\ntext/plain;charset=utf-8\ntext/plain\ntext/x-moz-url-priv'''
MULTIPLE          : ''Error:\ target\ MULTIPLE\ not\ available
SAVE_TARGETS      : ''''
text/html         : \<meta\ http-equiv=\"content-type\"\ content=\"text/html\;\ 
charset=utf-8\"\>\<pre\ class=\"lang-bash\ s-code-block\"\>\<code\ data-highligh
ted=\"yes\"\ class=\"hljs\ language-bash\"\>xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP
\</code\>\</pre\>''
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/_moz_htmlcontext: \<html\ itemscope=\"\"\ itemtype=\"https://schema.org/QAP
age\"\ class=\"html__responsive\ \"\ lang=\"en\"\>\<body\ class=\"question-page\
 unified-theme\ theme-dark\"\>\<div\ class=\"container\"\>\<div\ id=\"content\"\
 class=\"snippet-hidden\"\>\<div\ itemprop=\"mainEntity\"\ itemscope=\"\"\ itemt
ype=\"https://schema.org/Question\"\>\<div\ class=\"inner-content\ clearfix\"\>\
<div\ id=\"mainbar\"\ role=\"main\"\ aria-label=\"question\ and\ answers\"\>\<di
v\ class=\"question\ js-question\"\ data-questionid=\"79058411\"\ data-position-
on-page=\"0\"\ data-score=\"0\"\ id=\"question\"\>\<div\ class=\"post-layout\ \"
\>\<div\ class=\"postcell\ post-layout--right\"\>\<div\ class=\"s-prose\ js-post
-body\"\ itemprop=\"text\"\>\<pre\ class=\"lang-bash\ s-code-block\"\>\</pre\>\<
/div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</div\>\</body\>\
</html\>''
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/_moz_htmlinfo: 0\,0''
UTF8_STRING       : xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
COMPOUND_TEXT     : xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
TEXT              : xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
STRING            : xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
text/plain;charset=utf-8: xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
text/plain        : xclip\ -sel\ clip\ -o\ -t\ TIMESTAMP''
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/x-moz-url-priv: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79058411/xclip-timestam
p-time-units''

But there are some errors! can't deal with null bytes.

Dump clipboard through od:

Replacing 1st %q by '%s'and using od -A n -t a for showing null bytes.

clipDump () {
    local tgts tgt clip errstr
    local -i errfd
    mapfile -t tgts < <(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -o -t TARGETS)
    for tgt in "${tgts[@]}"; do
        exec {errfd}<> <(:)
        clip="$(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -t $tgt -o 2>&$errfd | od -t a -A n)"
        IFS= read -ru $errfd -t .01 errstr
        exec {errfd}>&-
        printf "%-30s: '%s'\e[31m%q\e[0m\n" $'\e[44;30m'"$tgt"$'\e[0m' "$clip" "$errstr"
    done
}

clipDump c

TIMESTAMP         : '   1   6   9   5   7   5   9   0   2   9  nl'''
TARGETS           : '   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P  nl   T   A   R   G   E   T
   S  nl   M   U   L   T   I   P   L   E  nl   S   A   V   E   _
   T   A   R   G   E   T   S  nl   t   e   x   t   /   h   t   m
   l  nl   t   e   x   t   /   _   m   o   z   _   h   t   m   l
   c   o   n   t   e   x   t  nl   t   e   x   t   /   _   m   o
   z   _   h   t   m   l   i   n   f   o  nl   U   T   F   8   _
   S   T   R   I   N   G  nl   C   O   M   P   O   U   N   D   _
   T   E   X   T  nl   T   E   X   T  nl   S   T   R   I   N   G
  nl   t   e   x   t   /   p   l   a   i   n   ;   c   h   a   r
   s   e   t   =   u   t   f   -   8  nl   t   e   x   t   /   p
   l   a   i   n  nl   t   e   x   t   /   x   -   m   o   z   -
   u   r   l   -   p   r   i   v  nl'''
MULTIPLE          : ''Error:\ target\ MULTIPLE\ not\ available
SAVE_TARGETS      : ''''
text/html         : '   <   m   e   t   a  sp   h   t   t   p   -   e   q   u   i   v
   =   "   c   o   n   t   e   n   t   -   t   y   p   e   "  sp
   c   o   n   t   e   n   t   =   "   t   e   x   t   /   h   t
   m   l   ;  sp   c   h   a   r   s   e   t   =   u   t   f   -
   8   "   >   <   p   r   e  sp   c   l   a   s   s   =   "   l
   a   n   g   -   b   a   s   h  sp   s   -   c   o   d   e   -
   b   l   o   c   k   "   >   <   c   o   d   e  sp   d   a   t
   a   -   h   i   g   h   l   i   g   h   t   e   d   =   "   y
   e   s   "  sp   c   l   a   s   s   =   "   h   l   j   s  sp
   l   a   n   g   u   a   g   e   -   b   a   s   h   "   >   x
   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp   -
   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P   <   /
   c   o   d   e   >   <   /   p   r   e   >'''
text/_moz_htmlcontext: '   < nul   h nul   t nul   m nul   l nul  sp nul   i nul   t nul
   e nul   m nul   s nul   c nul   o nul   p nul   e nul   = nul
   " nul   " nul  sp nul   i nul   t nul   e nul   m nul   t nul
   y nul   p nul   e nul   = nul   " nul   h nul   t nul   t nul
   p nul   s nul   : nul   / nul   / nul   s nul   c nul   h nul
   e nul   m nul   a nul   . nul   o nul   r nul   g nul   / nul
   Q nul   A nul   P nul   a nul   g nul   e nul   " nul  sp nul
   c nul   l nul   a nul   s nul   s nul   = nul   " nul   h nul
   t nul   m nul   l nul   _ nul   _ nul   r nul   e nul   s nul
   p nul   o nul   n nul   s nul   i nul   v nul   e nul  sp nul
   " nul  sp nul   l nul   a nul   n nul   g nul   = nul   " nul
   e nul   n nul   " nul   > nul   < nul   b nul   o nul   d nul
   y nul  sp nul   c nul   l nul   a nul   s nul   s nul   = nul
   " nul   q nul   u nul   e nul   s nul   t nul   i nul   o nul
   n nul   - nul   p nul   a nul   g nul   e nul  sp nul   u nul
   n nul   i nul   f nul   i nul   e nul   d nul   - nul   t nul
   h nul   e nul   m nul   e nul  sp nul   t nul   h nul   e nul
   m nul   e nul   - nul   d nul   a nul   r nul   k nul   " nul
   > nul   < nul   d nul   i nul   v nul  sp nul   c nul   l nul
   a nul   s nul   s nul   = nul   " nul   c nul   o nul   n nul
    ....
   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul
   > nul   < nul   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul
   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul   / nul   d nul
   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul
   > nul   < nul   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul
   / nul   d nul   i nul   v nul   > nul   < nul   / nul   b nul
   o nul   d nul   y nul   > nul   < nul   / nul   h nul   t nul
   m nul   l nul   > nul'''
text/_moz_htmlinfo: '   0 nul   , nul   0 nul'''
UTF8_STRING       : '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
COMPOUND_TEXT     : '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
TEXT              : '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
STRING            : '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
text/plain;charset=utf-8: '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
text/plain        : '   x   c   l   i   p  sp   -   s   e   l  sp   c   l   i   p  sp
   -   o  sp   -   t  sp   T   I   M   E   S   T   A   M   P'''
text/x-moz-url-priv: '   h nul   t nul   t nul   p nul   s nul   : nul   / nul   / nul
   s nul   t nul   a nul   c nul   k nul   o nul   v nul   e nul
   r nul   f nul   l nul   o nul   w nul   . nul   c nul   o nul
   m nul   / nul   q nul   u nul   e nul   s nul   t nul   i nul
   o nul   n nul   s nul   / nul   7 nul   9 nul   0 nul   5 nul
   8 nul   4 nul   1 nul   1 nul   / nul   x nul   c nul   l nul
   i nul   p nul   - nul   t nul   i nul   m nul   e nul   s nul
   t nul   a nul   m nul   p nul   - nul   t nul   i nul   m nul
   e nul   - nul   u nul   n nul   i nul   t nul   s nul'''

Null bytes!

Well, then we can see: TARGETS text/_moz_htmlcontext and text/x-moz-url-priv output's are encoded in UTF-16!

For this you could use tr -d \\0 but you'd better use a conversion tool:

clip="$(xclip -sel c -o -t text/x-moz-url-priv | iconv -f utf16)"
echo "$clip"

or

clip="$(xclip -sel c -o -t text/x-moz-url-priv | recode -f u7..u8)"
echo "$clip"

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/749544/pipe-to-from-the-clipboard-in-a-bash-script?page=2&tab=scoredesc#tab-top

Final version

For final version, I've replaced %q by %s in order to obtain a cleaner output, and added one switch: -b for binary mode, where output are reformated by od -ta -An, then newlines and exessive spaces are dropped.

clipDump() {
    local _Targets _target _store _errMsg
    local -i _errFD _binMode=0
    [[ $1 == -b ]]  && shift && _binMode=1
    mapfile -t _Targets < <(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -o -t TARGETS)
    for _target in "${_Targets[@]}"; do
        exec {_errFD}<> <(:)
        if ((_binMode)); then
            _store="$(
                xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -t $_target -o 2>&$_errFD |
                    od -ta -An |
                    tr -d \\n |
                    sed '
                        s/^[[:space:]]*//;
                        s/[[:space:]]*$//;
                        s/[[:space:]]\+/ /g;
                ')"
        else
            _store="$(xclip -selection ${1:-primary} -t $_target -o 2>&$_errFD)"
        fi
        IFS= read -ru $_errFD -t .01 _errMsg
        exec {_errFD}>&-
        printf "%-30s: %s\e[31m%s\e[0m\n" \
               $'\e[44;30m'"$_target"$'\e[0m' "$_store" "$_errMsg"
    done
}

clipDump

TIMESTAMP         : 2020839389
TARGETS           : TIMESTAMP
TARGETS
MULTIPLE
text/html
text/_moz_htmlcontext
text/_moz_htmlinfo
UTF8_STRING
COMPOUND_TEXT
TEXT
STRING
text/plain;charset=utf-8
text/plain
text/x-moz-url-priv
MULTIPLE          : Error: target MULTIPLE not available
text/html         : <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><pre class="lang-bash s-code-block"><code data-highlighted="yes" class="hljs language-bash">clipDump</code></pre>
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/_moz_htmlcontext: <html itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/QAPage" class="html__responsive " lang="en"><body class="question-page unified-theme theme-dark"><div class="container"><div id="content" class="snippet-hidden"><div itemprop="mainEntity" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/Question"><div class="inner-content clearfix"><div id="mainbar" role="main" aria-label="question and answers"><div id="answers"><div id="answer-79059847" class="answer js-answer highlighted-post" data-answerid="79059847" data-parentid="749544" data-score="2" data-position-on-page="27" data-highest-scored="0" data-question-has-accepted-highest-score="0" itemprop="suggestedAnswer" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/Answer"><div class="post-layout"><div class="answercell post-layout--right"><div class="inline-editor" style=""><form class="inline-post" action="/posts/79059847/edit-submit/29257632-6d0e-4ec5-a1f3-a71b7f11b79d" method="post" data-post-params="{&quot;is_suggested_edit&quot;:false,&quot;post_type&quot;:2,&quot;owner&quot;:1,&quot;PostId&quot;:79059847}"><div id="post-editor-79059847" class="post-editor js-post-editor d-flex fd-column g4"><div id="wmd-preview-79059847" class="s-prose mb16 wmd-preview js-wmd-preview"><pre class="lang-bash s-code-block"></pre></div></div></form></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/_moz_htmlinfo: 0,0
UTF8_STRING       : clipDump
COMPOUND_TEXT     : clipDump
TEXT              : clipDump
STRING            : clipDump
text/plain;charset=utf-8: clipDump
text/plain        : clipDump
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
text/x-moz-url-priv: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/749544/pipe-to-from-the-clipboard-in-a-bash-script/79059847#79059847

clipDump -b

TIMESTAMP         : 2 0 2 0 8 9 8 7 4 8 nl
TARGETS           : T I M E S T A M P nl T A R G E T S nl M U L T I P L E nl t e x t / h t m l nl t e x t / _ m o z _ h t m l c o n t e x t nl t e x t / _ m o z _ h t m l i n f o nl U T F 8 _ S T R I N G nl C O M P O U N D _ T E X T nl T E X T nl S T R I N G nl t e x t / p l a i n ; c h a r s e t = u t f - 8 nl t e x t / p l a i n nl t e x t / x - m o z - u r l - p r i v nl
MULTIPLE          : Error: target MULTIPLE not available
text/html         : < m e t a sp h t t p - e q u i v = " c o n t e n t - t y p e " sp c o n t e n t = " t e x t / h t m l ; sp c h a r s e t = u t f - 8 " > < p r e sp c l a s s = " l a n g - b a s h sp s - c o d e - b l o c k " > < c o d e sp d a t a - h i g h l i g h t e d = " y e s " sp c l a s s = " h l j s sp l a n g u a g e - b a s h " > c l i p D u m p sp - b < / c o d e > < / p r e >
text/_moz_htmlcontext: < nul h nul t nul m nul l nul sp nul i nul t nul e nul m nul s nul c nul o nul p nul e nul = nul " nul " nul sp nul i nul t nul e nul m nul t nul y nul p nul e nul = nul " nul h nul t nul t nul p nul s nul : nul / nul / nul s nul c nul h nul e nul m nul a nul . nul o nul r nul g nul / nul Q nul A nul P ... = nul " nul l nul a nul n nul g nul - nul b nul a nul s nul h nul sp nul s nul - nul c nul o nul d nul e nul - nul b nul l nul o nul c nul k nul " nul > nul < nul / nul p nul r nul e nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul f nul o nul r nul m nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul d nul i nul v nul > nul < nul / nul b nul o nul d nul y nul > nul < nul / nul h nul t nul m nul l nul > nul
text/_moz_htmlinfo: 0 nul , nul 0 nul
UTF8_STRING       : c l i p D u m p sp - b
COMPOUND_TEXT     : c l i p D u m p sp - b
TEXT              : c l i p D u m p sp - b
STRING            : c l i p D u m p sp - b
text/plain;charset=utf-8: c l i p D u m p sp - b
text/plain        : c l i p D u m p sp - b
text/x-moz-url-priv: h nul t nul t nul p nul s nul : nul / nul / nul s nul t nul a nul c nul k nul o nul v nul e nul r nul f nul l nul o nul w nul . nul c nul o nul m nul / nul q nul u nul e nul s nul t nul i nul o nul n nul s nul / nul 7 nul 4 nul 9 nul 5 nul 4 nul 4 nul / nul p nul i nul p nul e nul - nul t nul o nul - nul f nul r nul o nul m nul - nul t nul h nul e nul - nul c nul l nul i nul p nul b nul o nul a nul r nul d nul - nul i nul n nul - nul a nul - nul b nul a nul s nul h nul - nul s nul c nul r nul i nul p nul t nul / nul 7 nul 9 nul 0 nul 5 nul 9 nul 8 nul 4 nul 7 nul # nul 7 nul 9 nul 0 nul 5 nul 9 nul 8 nul 4 nul 7 nul

Sending datas to clipboard

For posting on this site, for sample, I often use something like:

COLUMNS=88 man -Len -Pcat xclip |
    sed '/^[[:space:]]*\(-[iot]\|-sel\)/,/^ *$/s/^/> /p;d' |
    xclip

Then I could simply paste:

   -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)

   -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 tar‐
          get atoms refer to ICCCM section 2.6.2

   -selection
          specify  which X selection to use, options are "primary" to use XA_PRI‐
          MARY  (default),  "secondary"  for  XA_SECONDARY  or  "clipboard"   for
          XA_CLIPBOARD

( There is no need to precise: xclip -i -sel p. ;-)

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Comments

1

In macOS, use pbpaste.

For example:

Update the clipboard 

pbpaste  | ruby -ne ' puts "\|" + $_.split( )[1..4].join("\|") ' | pbcopy
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Comments

1

If you are using "Windows Terminal" to ssh into a Linux host, you can use the following little script to copy a file to the clipboard of the windows host:

# Clipfile
#  - Sends a file into the Windows Terminal clipboard
printf $'\e]52;c;%s\a' "$(base64 ${1:?})"

I'm not sure if this works with other terminal and console programs???

Thanks to @MrCalvin answer at: https://superuser.com/questions/1705770/copy-data-from-linux-console-to-windowshost-clipboard-using-windows-terminal?newreg=8ad2f39ec3f54a659b0c9e295540bbf1

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Comments

0

If you're like me and run on a Linux server without root privileges and there isn't any xclip or GPM you could workaround this issue by just using a temporary file. For example:

$ echo "Hello, World!" > ~/clip
$ echo `cat ~/clip`
Hello, World!
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5 Comments

I don't see how a lack of root privileges factors into this.
@BradenBest Lack of root privileges means I couldn't install things.
But what would you be installing? X? On a server? Unless you're hosting some weird X forwarding service, I can't see why you would ever want to do that.
@BradenBest Not sure. Whatever program or service would allow me to perform a copy paste.
Well, if you're using any of the X selections (which is necessarily implied by "clipboard" and any mentions of xclip/xsel), you need an active X session (and thus an X server) so that you can access the selection in the first place. To see what I mean, try running DISPLAY="" xsel on your local machine. It will exit on an error, being unable to find session "", and no interaction with any X selection will be made. That's why I initially said that I don't see how root privileges factor into this: root or no root, you're not likely to find an X selection useful in a server environment.
1
2

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