vis-clipboard1

Usage

Overview

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/