1XCLIP(1) General Commands Manual XCLIP(1)
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6 xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)
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9 xclip [OPTION] [FILE]...
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12 Reads from standard in, or from one or more files, and makes the data
13 available as an X selection for pasting into X applications. Prints
14 current X selection to standard out.
15 -i, -in
17 read text into X selection from standard input or files
18 (default)
19 -o, -out
21 prints the selection to standard out (generally for piping to a
22 file or program)
23 -f, -filter
25 when xclip is invoked in the in mode with output level set to
26 silent (the defaults), the filter option will cause xclip to
27 print the text piped to standard in back to standard out unmodi‐
28 fied
29 -l, -loops
31 number of X selection requests (pastes into X applications) to
32 wait for before exiting, with a value of 0 (default) causing
33 xclip to wait for an unlimited number of requests until another
34 application (possibly another invocation of xclip) takes owner‐
35 ship of the selection
36 -d, -display
38 X display to use (e.g. "localhost:0"), xclip defaults to the
39 value in $DISPLAY if this option is omitted
40 -h, -help
42 show quick summary of options
43 -selection
45 specify which X selection to use, options are "primary" to use
46 XA_PRIMARY (default), "secondary" for XA_SECONDARY or "clip‐
47 board" for XA_CLIPBOARD
48 -version
50 show version information
51 -silent
53 forks into the background to wait for requests, no informational
54 output, errors only (default)
55 -quiet show informational messages on the terminal and run in the fore‐
57 ground
58 -verbose
60 provide a running commentary of what xclip is doing
61 xclip reads text from standard in or files and makes it available to
64 other X applications for pasting as an X selection (traditionally with
65 the middle mouse button). It reads from all files specified, or from
66 standard in if no files are specified. xclip can also print the con‐
67 tents of a selection to standard out with the -o option.
68 xclip was designed to allow tighter integration of X applications and
70 command line programs. The default action is to silently wait in the
71 background for X selection requests (pastes) until another X applica‐
72 tion places data in the clipboard, at which point xclip exits silently.
73 You can use the -verbose option to see if and when xclip actually
74 receives selection requests from other X applications.
75 Options can be abbreviated as long as they remain unambiguous. For
77 example, it is possible to use -d or -disp instead of -display. How‐
78 ever, -v couldn't be used because it is ambiguous (it could be short
79 for -verbose or -version), so it would be interpreted as a filename.
80 Note that only the first character of the selection specified with the
82 -selection option is important. This means that "p", "sec" and "clip"
83 would have the same effect as using "primary", "secondary" or "clip‐
84 board" respectively.
85
88 I hate man pages without examples!
89 uptime | xclip
91 Put your uptime in the X selection. Then middle click in an X applica‐
93 tion to paste.
94 xclip -loops 10 -verbose /etc/motd
96 Exit after /etc/motd (message of the day) has been pasted 10 times.
98 Show how many selection requests (pastes) have been processed.
99 xclip -o > helloworld.c
101 Put the contents of the selection into a file.
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106 DISPLAY
107 X display to use if none is specified with the -display option.
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111 Please report any bugs, problems, queries, experiences, etc. directly
112 to the author.
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116 Kim Saunders <kims@debian.org> Peter Åstrand <astrand@lysator.liu.se>
117 XCLIP(1)