1clipboard(n) Tk Built-In Commands clipboard(n)
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8 clipboard - Manipulate Tk clipboard
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11 clipboard option ?arg arg ...?
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16 This command provides a Tcl interface to the Tk clipboard, which stores
17 data for later retrieval using the selection mechanism (via the -selec‐
18 tion CLIPBOARD option). In order to copy data into the clipboard,
19 clipboard clear must be called, followed by a sequence of one or more
20 calls to clipboard append. To ensure that the clipboard is updated
21 atomically, all appends should be completed before returning to the
22 event loop.
23 The first argument to clipboard determines the format of the rest of
25 the arguments and the behavior of the command. The following forms are
26 currently supported:
27 clipboard clear ?-displayof window?
29 Claims ownership of the clipboard on window's display and
30 removes any previous contents. Window defaults to “.”. Returns
31 an empty string.
32 clipboard append ?-displayof window? ?-format format? ?-type type? ?--?
34 data
35 Appends data to the clipboard on window's display in the form
36 given by type with the representation given by format and claims
37 ownership of the clipboard on window's display.
38 Type specifies the form in which the selection is to be returned
40 (the desired “target” for conversion, in ICCCM terminology), and
41 should be an atom name such as STRING or FILE_NAME; see the
42 Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual for complete
43 details. Type defaults to STRING.
44 The format argument specifies the representation that should be
46 used to transmit the selection to the requester (the second col‐
47 umn of Table 2 of the ICCCM), and defaults to STRING. If format
48 is STRING, the selection is transmitted as 8-bit ASCII charac‐
49 ters. If format is ATOM, then the data is divided into fields
50 separated by white space; each field is converted to its atom
51 value, and the 32-bit atom value is transmitted instead of the
52 atom name. For any other format, data is divided into fields
53 separated by white space and each field is converted to a 32-bit
54 integer; an array of integers is transmitted to the selection
55 requester. Note that strings passed to clipboard append are
56 concatenated before conversion, so the caller must take care to
57 ensure appropriate spacing across string boundaries. All items
58 appended to the clipboard with the same type must have the same
59 format.
60 The format argument is needed only for compatibility with clip‐
62 board requesters that do not use Tk. If the Tk toolkit is being
63 used to retrieve the CLIPBOARD selection then the value is con‐
64 verted back to a string at the requesting end, so format is
65 irrelevant.
66 A -- argument may be specified to mark the end of options: the
68 next argument will always be used as data. This feature may be
69 convenient if, for example, data starts with a -.
70 clipboard get ?-displayof window? ?-type type?
72 Retrieve data from the clipboard on window's display. Window
73 defaults to “.”. Type specifies the form in which the data is
74 to be returned and should be an atom name such as STRING or
75 FILE_NAME. Type defaults to STRING. This command is equivalent
76 to “selection get -selection CLIPBOARD”.
77 Note that on modern X11 systems, the most useful type to
79 retrieve for transferred strings is not STRING, but rather
80 UTF8_STRING.
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83 Get the current contents of the clipboard.
84 if {[catch {clipboard get} contents]} {
85 # There were no clipboard contents at all
86 }
87 Set the clipboard to contain a fixed string.
89 clipboard clear
90 clipboard append "some fixed string"
91 You can put custom data into the clipboard by using a custom -type
93 option. This is not necessarily portable, but can be very useful. The
94 method of passing Tcl scripts this way is effective, but should be
95 mixed with safe interpreters in production code.
96 # This is a very simple canvas serializer;
97 # it produces a script that recreates the item(s) when executed
98 proc getItemConfig {canvas tag} {
99 set script {}
100 foreach item [$canvas find withtag $tag] {
101 append script {$canvas create } [$canvas type $item]
102 append script { } [$canvas coords $item] { }
103 foreach config [$canvas itemconf $item] {
104 lassign $config name - - - value
105 append script [list $name $value] { }
106 }
107 append script \n
108 }
109 return [string trim $script]
110 }
111 # Set up a binding on a canvas to cut and paste an item
113 set c [canvas .c]
114 pack $c
115 $c create text 150 30 -text "cut and paste me"
116 bind $c <<Cut>> {
117 clipboard clear
118 clipboard append -type TkCanvasItem \
119 [getItemConfig %W current]
120 # Delete because this is cut, not copy.
121 %W delete current
122 }
123 bind $c <<Paste>> {
124 catch {
125 set canvas %W
126 eval [clipboard get -type TkCanvasItem]
127 }
128 }
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132 interp(n), selection(n)
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136 clear, format, clipboard, append, selection, type
137Tk 8.4 clipboard(n)