vis-clipboard(1)

NAME

vis-clipboard – Read from or write to the system clipboard

SYNOPSIS

vis-clipboard --usable

vis-clipboard --copy [--selection selection]

vis-clipboard --paste [--selection selection]

DESCRIPTION

vis-clipboard wraps various system-specific tools for interacting with a system clipboard. It can run in three different ways, depending on the flag given on the command-line.

--usable: In this mode, vis-clipboard looks for a way to interface with the system clipboard. If it finds one, it terminates with exit code 0. If no interface to the system clipboard is available, it terminates with exit code 1.
--copy: In this mode, vis-clipboard reads the content of standard input, and stores it in the system clipboard.
--paste: In this mode, vis-clipboard reads the content of the system clipboard, and writes it to standard output.
--selection selection: specify which selection to use, options are "primary" or "clipboard". Silently ignored on platforms with a single clipboard.

CLIPBOARD TOOLS

To determine which system clipboard to use, vis-clipboard checks for these clipboard tools in the following order:

wl-clipboard(1): Wayland (if $WAYLAND_DISPLAY is set)
wayclip: Wayland (if $WAYLAND_DISPLAY is set)
xclip(1): X11 (if $DISPLAY is set)
xsel(1): X11 (if $DISPLAY is set)
pbcopy(1) / pbpaste(1): macOS
wslclip(1): WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
/dev/clipboard: Cygwin
termux-clipboard-{get,set}: Termux

EXIT STATUS

The vis-clipboard utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. When run with the --usable flag, an exit status of 0 means that it found a supported system-specific tool, while 1 means that clipboard access is not available.

EXAMPLES

Test whether clipboard access is available:

if vis-clipboard --usable; then
	echo "Clipboard access available"
else
	echo "No clipboard"
fi

Copy a friendly greeting to the clipboard:

echo "Hello, World" | vis-clipboard --copy

Send the current contents of the system clipboard to be recorded and analyzed:

vis-clipboard --paste | curl -d - https://www.nsa.gov/