XCLIP(1) manual page

Name

xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)

Description

Reads from standard in, or from one or more files, and makes the data available as an X selection for pasting into X applications. Prints current X selection to standard out.

-i, -in

read text into X selection from standard input or files (default)

-o, -out

prints the selection to standard out (generally for piping to a file or program)

-f, -filter

when xclip is invoked in the in mode with output level set to silent (the defaults), the filter option will cause xclip to print the text piped to standard in back to standard out unmodified

-l, -loops

number of X selection requests (pastes into X applications) to wait for before exiting, with a value of 0 (default) causing xclip to wait for an unlimited number of requests until another application (possibly another invokation xclip) takes ownership of the selection

-d, -display

X display to use (e.g. "localhost:0"), xclip defaults to the value in $DISPLAY if this option is omitted

-h, -help

show quick summary of options

-selection

specify which X selection to use, options are "primary" to use XA_PRIMARY (default), "secondary" for XA_SECONDARY or "clipboard" for XA_CLIPBOARD

-version

show version information

-silent

forks into the background to wait for requests, no informational output, errors only (default)

-quiet

show informational messages on the terminal and run in the foreground

-verbose

provide a running

commentary of what xclip is doing

xclip reads text from standard in or files and makes it available to other X applications for pasting as an X selection (traditionally with the middle mouse button). It reads from all files specified, or from standard in if no files are specified. xclip can also print the contents of a selection to standard out with the -o option.

xclip was designed to allow tighter integration of X applications and command line programs. The default action is to silently wait in the background for X selection requests (pastes) until another X application places data in the clipboard, at which point xclip exits silently. You can use the -verbose option to see if and when xclip actually recieves selection requests from other X applications.

Options can be abreviated as long as they remain unambiguous. For example, it is possible to use -d or -disp instead of -display. However, -v couldn't be used because it is ambiguous (it could be short for -verbose or -version), so it would be interpreted as a filename.

Note that only the first character of the selection specified with the -selection option is important. This means that "p", "sec" and "clip" would have the same effect as using "primary", "secondary" or "clipboard" respectively.