Related
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
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.
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
Install
# You can install xclip using `apt-get`
apt-get install xclip
# or `pacman`
pacman -S xclip
# or `dnf`
dnf install xclip
If you do not have access to apt-get nor pacman, nor dnf, the sources are available on sourceforge.
Set-up
Bash
In ~/.bash_aliases, add:
alias setclip="xclip -selection c"
alias getclip="xclip -selection c -o"
Do not forget to load your new configuration using . ~/.bash_aliases or by restarting your profile.
Fish
In ~/.config/fish/config.fish, add:
abbr setclip "xclip -selection c"
abbr getclip "xclip -selection c -o"
Do not forget to restart your fish instance by restarting your terminal for changes to apply.
Usage
You can now use setclip and getclip, e.g:
$ echo foo | setclip
$ getclip
foo
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
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
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
Try
xclip
xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)
man
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.
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.
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
For Mac only:
echo "Hello World" | pbcopy
pbpaste
These are located /usr/bin/pbcopy and /usr/bin/pbpaste.
On Windows (with Cygwin) try
cat /dev/clipboard or echo "foo" > /dev/clipboard as mentioned in this article.
There are different clipboards in Linux; the X server has one, the window manager might have another one, etc. There is no standard device.
Oh, yes, on CLI, the screen program has its own clipboard as well, as do some other applications like Emacs and vi.
In X, you can use xclip.
You can check this thread for other possible answers:
http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.unix.shell/2004-07/0919.html
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.
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"
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
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.
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.
In Linux this works:
cat filename | xclip
pbcopy is built into OS X:
Copying the content of file .bash_profile:
cat ~/.bash_profile | pbcopy
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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();
In macOS, use pbpaste.
For example:
Update the clipboard
pbpaste | ruby -ne ' puts "\|" + $_.split( )[1..4].join("\|") ' | pbcopy
A way to paste from the clipboard to a file without any tools except echo.
Escape single quotes in the text you want to paste: replace all occurrences of ' with '\'' and copy the result to clipboard.
Type echo -n '
Press Shift + Insert
Type ' > filename.txt
Press Enter
Basically you're doing this:
echo -n 'copied "text" with '\''single quotes'\'' escaped' > filename.txt
It works even if the copied text has new lines.
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
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!
I am using meld with git for merging and I want to try vimdiff. Configured three way merge with git and then my own diff command:
[merge]
tool = vimdiff3
conflictstyle = diff3
[mergetool "vimdiff3"]
cmd = gvim -f -d \"$LOCAL\" \"$BASE\" \"$REMOTE\" \"$MERGED\"
But everytime I try to run mergetool, git just quickly respond "[file] seems unchanged" and skips the merge.
On top of that, I'd like to get real three-way merge (four files) with merged window in the bottom, this shold work but I saw many reports it is not working on the internet:
cmd = gvim -f -d -c \"wincmd J\" \"$MERGED\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$BASE\" \"$REMOTE\"
You could check if the upcomming mergetools/vimdiff3 setting (for git 2.0.x Q3 2014) would work for you.
See commit 7c147b7 by Felipe Contreras (felipec), merged only recently in commit 3a9dae7 (June 2014):
mergetools: add vimdiff3 mode
It's similar to the default, except that the other windows are hidden.
This ensures that removed/added colors are still visible on the main merge window, but the other windows not visible.
Specially useful with merge.conflictstyle=diff3.
gvimdiff3|vimdiff3)
if $base_present
then
"$merge_tool_path" -f -d -c 'hid | hid | hid' \
"$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$BASE" "$MERGED"
else
"$merge_tool_path" -f -d -c 'hid | hid' \
"$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
fi
;;
The new file mergetools/vimdiff3 has been added, which means that all you would need to do is:
git mergetool --tool=vimdiff3
(without having to configure mergetool.vimdiff3.cmd)
diff -w command is used to create a side by side comparison diff file (instead of parallel)
i then view them using vi via ssh terminal
the changes are indicated by either "<" or "|" or ">"
Since the file i am viewing is a source code, navigating to changes alone
using above symbols is difficult since they are also in C source code.
How can i change these default symbols to desired ones ?
Kindly help. Thanks.
Instead of viewing the output of diff -w in vim, you can use vim's built-in diff:
vim -d file1 file2
This opens vim in a vertical split with both files open, and diff markings in the code. This is what it looks like:
And it works in a terminal too:
You can find a short tutorial here
According to my version of diff (2.8.1 from the GNU diffutils by the FSF) -w is used to change the width of the output; The -y parameter outputs side by side comparison. In combination, the two show no further effect than the -y parameter used alone, which means you may have an alias in your terminal profile or in the global terminal profile that aliases diff to diff -y.
I say all this because all options to change the symbols ("<", "|", and ">") conflict with the -y option. If you can live without side-by-side, you have the option of two other included output styles or defining your own. The two output styles are -c (context) and -u (unified). (For more information on what they do see the diff Wikipedia page. For more information on the options see the diff man page.)
A more in depth fix would be to use the following options:
diff --old-group-format="(deleted)---" \
--new-group-format="(added)---" \
--changed-group-format="(updated)---" \
--unchanged-group-format="(nodiff)---" \
old_file.c new_file.c
Now the old file's lines that are not present in the new file are represented by (deleted)---
The new file's lines that are not present in the old file are represented by (added)---
Lines that have been changed are represented by (updated)---
Lines common to both files are represented by (nodiff)---
Since you seem to do this often enough, you have the option of making it an alias in your terminal profile or writing a small shell script to handle it. For more options, see the manual's section on options and specifically see the section on line group formats for information on what you can put between the quotes in the format definitions.
Of course, if you must have side-by-side, try Nathan Fellman's idea above. Otherwise, there's the option of using a dedicated GUI tool for it such as Kompare.
I'd like to use 'diff' to get a both line difference between and character difference.
For example, consider:
File 1
abcde
abc
abcccd
File 2
abcde
ab
abccc
Using diff -u I get:
## -1,3 +1,3 ##
abcde
-abc
-abcccd
\ No newline at end of file
+ab
+abccc
\ No newline at end of file
However, it only shows me that were changes in these lines. What I'd like to see is something like:
## -1,3 +1,3 ##
abcde
-ab<ins>c</ins>
-abccc<ins>d</ins>
\ No newline at end of file
+ab
+abccc
\ No newline at end of file
You get my drift.
Now, I know I can use other engines to mark/check the difference on a specific line. But I'd rather use one tool that does all of it.
Git has a word diff, and defining all characters as words effectively gives you a character diff. However, newline changes are ignored.
Example
Create a repository like this:
mkdir chardifftest
cd chardifftest
git init
echo -e 'foobarbaz\ncatdog\nfox' > file
git add -A; git commit -m 1
echo -e 'fuobArbas\ncat\ndogfox' > file
git add -A; git commit -m 2
Now, do git diff --word-diff=color --word-diff-regex=. master^ master and you'll get:
Note how both additions and deletions are recognized at the character level, while both additions and deletions of newlines are ignored.
You may also want to try one of these:
git diff --word-diff=plain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master
git diff --word-diff=porcelain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master
You can use:
diff -u f1 f2 |colordiff |diff-highlight
colordiff is a Ubuntu package. You can install it using sudo apt-get install colordiff.
diff-highlight is from git (since version 2.9). It is located in /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/diff-highlight/diff-highlight. You can put it somewhere in your $PATH.
Python's difflib is ace if you want to do this programmatically. For interactive use, I use vim's diff mode (easy enough to use: just invoke vim with vimdiff a b). I also occaisionally use Beyond Compare, which does pretty much everything you could hope for from a diff tool.
I haven't see any command line tool which does this usefully, but as Will notes, the difflib example code might help.
You can use the cmp command in Solaris:
cmp
Compare two files, and if they differ, tells the first byte and line number where they differ.
Python has convenient library named difflib which might help answer your question.
Below are two oneliners using difflib for different python versions.
python3 -c 'import difflib, sys; \
print("".join( \
difflib.ndiff( \
open(sys.argv[1]).readlines(),open(sys.argv[2]).readlines())))'
python2 -c 'import difflib, sys; \
print "".join( \
difflib.ndiff( \
open(sys.argv[1]).readlines(), open(sys.argv[2]).readlines()))'
These might come in handy as a shell alias which is easier to move around with your .${SHELL_NAME}rc.
$ alias char_diff="python2 -c 'import difflib, sys; print \"\".join(difflib.ndiff(open(sys.argv[1]).readlines(), open(sys.argv[2]).readlines()))'"
$ char_diff old_file new_file
And more readable version to put in a standalone file.
#!/usr/bin/env python2
from __future__ import with_statement
import difflib
import sys
with open(sys.argv[1]) as old_f, open(sys.argv[2]) as new_f:
old_lines, new_lines = old_f.readlines(), new_f.readlines()
diff = difflib.ndiff(old_lines, new_lines)
print ''.join(diff)
Coloured, character-level diff ouput
Here's what you can do with the the below script and diff-highlight (which is part of git):
#!/bin/sh -eu
# Use diff-highlight to show word-level differences
diff -U3 --minimal "$#" |
sed 's/^-/\x1b[1;31m-/;s/^+/\x1b[1;32m+/;s/^#/\x1b[1;34m#/;s/$/\x1b[0m/' |
diff-highlight
(Credit to #retracile's answer for the sed highlighting)
cmp -l file1 file2 | wc
Worked well for me. The leftmost number of the result indicates the number of characters that differ.
I also wrote my own script to solve this problem using the Longest common subsequence algorithm.
It is executed as such
JLDiff.py a.txt b.txt out.html
The result is in html with red and green coloring. Larger files do exponentually take a longer amount of time to process but this does a true character by character comparison without checking line by line first.
Python's difflib can do this.
The documentation includes an example command-line program for you.
The exact format is not as you specified, but it would be straightforward to either parse the ndiff-style output or to modify the example program to generate your notation.
As one comment to main answer said you don't have to commit to use git diff:
git diff --word-diff=color --word-diff-regex=. file1 file2
green would be the character that is added by the second file.
red would be the character that is added by the first file.
Here is an online text comparison tool:
http://text-compare.com/
It can highlight every single char that is different and continues compare the rest.
ccdiff is a convenient dedicated tool for the task. Here is what your example looks like with it:
By default, it highlights the differences in color, but it can be used in a console without color support too.
The package is included in the main repository of Debian:
ccdiff is a colored diff that also colors inside changed lines.
All command-line tools that show the difference between two files fall short in showing minor changes visuably useful. ccdiff tries to give the look and feel of diff --color or colordiff, but extending the display of colored output from colored deleted and added lines to colors for deleted and addedd characters within the changed lines.
Not a complete answer, but if cmp -l's output is not clear enough, you can use:
sed 's/\(.\)/\1\n/g' file1 > file1.vertical
sed 's/\(.\)/\1\n/g' file2 > file2.vertical
diff file1.vertical file2.vertical
If you keep your files in Git, you can diff between versions with the diff-highlight script, which will show different lines, with differences highlighted.
Unfortunately it only works when the number of lines removed matches the number of lines added - there is stub code for when lines don't match, so presumably this could be fixed in the future.
I think the simpler solution is always a good solution.
In my case, the below code helps me a lot. I hope it helps
anybody else.
#!/bin/env python
def readfile( fileName ):
f = open( fileName )
c = f.read()
f.close()
return c
def diff( s1, s2 ):
counter=0
for ch1, ch2 in zip( s1, s2 ):
if not ch1 == ch2:
break
counter+=1
return counter < len( s1 ) and counter or -1
import sys
f1 = readfile( sys.argv[1] )
f2 = readfile( sys.argv[2] )
pos = diff( f1, f2 )
end = pos+200
if pos >= 0:
print "Different at:", pos
print ">", f1[pos:end]
print "<", f2[pos:end]
You can compare two files with the following syntax at your favorite terminal:
$ ./diff.py fileNumber1 fileNumber2
Most of these answers mention using of diff-highlight, a Perl module. But I didn't want to figure out how to install a Perl module. So I made a few minor changes to it to be a self-contained Perl script.
You can install it using:
▶ curl -o /usr/local/bin/DiffHighlight.pl \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexharv074/scripts/master/DiffHighlight.pl
And the usage (if you have the Ubuntu colordiff mentioned in zhanxw's answer):
▶ diff -u f1 f2 | colordiff | DiffHighlight.pl
And the usage (if you don't):
▶ diff -u f1 f2 | DiffHighlight.pl
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
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.
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
Install
# You can install xclip using `apt-get`
apt-get install xclip
# or `pacman`
pacman -S xclip
# or `dnf`
dnf install xclip
If you do not have access to apt-get nor pacman, nor dnf, the sources are available on sourceforge.
Set-up
Bash
In ~/.bash_aliases, add:
alias setclip="xclip -selection c"
alias getclip="xclip -selection c -o"
Do not forget to load your new configuration using . ~/.bash_aliases or by restarting your profile.
Fish
In ~/.config/fish/config.fish, add:
abbr setclip "xclip -selection c"
abbr getclip "xclip -selection c -o"
Do not forget to restart your fish instance by restarting your terminal for changes to apply.
Usage
You can now use setclip and getclip, e.g:
$ echo foo | setclip
$ getclip
foo
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
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
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
Try
xclip
xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)
man
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.
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.
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
For Mac only:
echo "Hello World" | pbcopy
pbpaste
These are located /usr/bin/pbcopy and /usr/bin/pbpaste.
On Windows (with Cygwin) try
cat /dev/clipboard or echo "foo" > /dev/clipboard as mentioned in this article.
There are different clipboards in Linux; the X server has one, the window manager might have another one, etc. There is no standard device.
Oh, yes, on CLI, the screen program has its own clipboard as well, as do some other applications like Emacs and vi.
In X, you can use xclip.
You can check this thread for other possible answers:
http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.unix.shell/2004-07/0919.html
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.
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"
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
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.
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.
In Linux this works:
cat filename | xclip
pbcopy is built into OS X:
Copying the content of file .bash_profile:
cat ~/.bash_profile | pbcopy
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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();
In macOS, use pbpaste.
For example:
Update the clipboard
pbpaste | ruby -ne ' puts "\|" + $_.split( )[1..4].join("\|") ' | pbcopy
A way to paste from the clipboard to a file without any tools except echo.
Escape single quotes in the text you want to paste: replace all occurrences of ' with '\'' and copy the result to clipboard.
Type echo -n '
Press Shift + Insert
Type ' > filename.txt
Press Enter
Basically you're doing this:
echo -n 'copied "text" with '\''single quotes'\'' escaped' > filename.txt
It works even if the copied text has new lines.
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
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!