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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15 This command provides a Tcl interface to the Tk clipboard, which stores
16 data for later retrieval using the selection mechanism (via the -selec‐
17 tion CLIPBOARD option). In order to copy data into the clipboard,
18 clipboard clear must be called, followed by a sequence of one or more
19 calls to clipboard append. To ensure that the clipboard is updated
20 atomically, all appends should be completed before returning to the
21 event loop.
22 The first argument to clipboard determines the format of the rest of
24 the arguments and the behavior of the command. The following forms are
25 currently supported:
26 clipboard append ?-displayof window? ?-format format? ?-type type? ?--?
28 data
29 Appends data to the clipboard on window's display in the form
30 given by type with the representation given by format and claims
31 ownership of the clipboard on window's display.
32 Type specifies the form in which the selection is to be returned
34 (the desired “target” for conversion, in ICCCM terminology), and
35 should be an atom name such as STRING or FILE_NAME; see the
36 Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual for complete
37 details. Type defaults to STRING.
38 The format argument specifies the representation that should be
40 used to transmit the selection to the requester (the second col‐
41 umn of Table 2 of the ICCCM), and defaults to STRING. If format
42 is STRING, the selection is transmitted as 8-bit ASCII charac‐
43 ters. If format is ATOM, then the data is divided into fields
44 separated by white space; each field is converted to its atom
45 value, and the 32-bit atom value is transmitted instead of the
46 atom name. For any other format, data is divided into fields
47 separated by white space and each field is converted to a 32-bit
48 integer; an array of integers is transmitted to the selection
49 requester. Note that strings passed to clipboard append are
50 concatenated before conversion, so the caller must take care to
51 ensure appropriate spacing across string boundaries. All items
52 appended to the clipboard with the same type must have the same
53 format.
54 The format argument is needed only for compatibility with clip‐
56 board requesters that do not use Tk. If the Tk toolkit is being
57 used to retrieve the CLIPBOARD selection then the value is con‐
58 verted back to a string at the requesting end, so format is
59 irrelevant.
60 A -- argument may be specified to mark the end of options: the
62 next argument will always be used as data. This feature may be
63 convenient if, for example, data starts with a -.
64 clipboard clear ?-displayof window?
66 Claims ownership of the clipboard on window's display and
67 removes any previous contents. Window defaults to “.”. Returns
68 an empty string.
69 clipboard get ?-displayof window? ?-type type?
71 Retrieve data from the clipboard on window's display. Window
72 defaults to “.”. Type specifies the form in which the data is
73 to be returned and should be an atom name such as STRING or
74 FILE_NAME. Type defaults to STRING. This command is equivalent
75 to “selection get -selection CLIPBOARD”.
76 Note that on modern X11 systems, the most useful type to
78 retrieve for transferred strings is not STRING, but rather
79 UTF8_STRING.
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82 Get the current contents of the clipboard.
83 if {[catch {clipboard get} contents]} {
84 # There were no clipboard contents at all
85 }
86 Set the clipboard to contain a fixed string.
88 clipboard clear
89 clipboard append "some fixed string"
90 You can put custom data into the clipboard by using a custom -type
92 option. This is not necessarily portable, but can be very useful. The
93 method of passing Tcl scripts this way is effective, but should be
94 mixed with safe interpreters in production code.
95 # This is a very simple canvas serializer;
96 # it produces a script that recreates the item(s) when executed
97 proc getItemConfig {canvas tag} {
98 set script {}
99 foreach item [$canvas find withtag $tag] {
100 append script {$canvas create } [$canvas type $item]
101 append script { } [$canvas coords $item] { }
102 foreach config [$canvas itemconf $item] {
103 lassign $config name - - - value
104 append script [list $name $value] { }
105 }
106 append script \n
107 }
108 return [string trim $script]
109 }
110 # Set up a binding on a canvas to cut and paste an item
112 set c [canvas .c]
113 pack $c
114 $c create text 150 30 -text "cut and paste me"
115 bind $c <<Cut>> {
116 clipboard clear
117 clipboard append -type TkCanvasItem \
118 [getItemConfig %W current]
119 # Delete because this is cut, not copy.
120 %W delete current
121 }
122 bind $c <<Paste>> {
123 catch {
124 set canvas %W
125 eval [clipboard get -type TkCanvasItem]
126 }
127 }
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130 interp(n), selection(n)
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133 clear, format, clipboard, append, selection, type
134Tk 8.4 clipboard(n)