NAME

       clipboard - Manipulate Tk clipboard

SYNOPSIS

       clipboard option ?arg arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION

       This  command  provides  a  Tcl interface to the Tk clipboard, which stores data for later
       retrieval using the selection mechanism (via the -selection CLIPBOARD option).   In  order
       to copy data into the clipboard, clipboard clear must be called, followed by a sequence of
       one or more  calls  to  clipboard  append.   To  ensure  that  the  clipboard  is  updated
       atomically, all appends should be completed before returning to the event loop.

       The first argument to clipboard determines the format of the rest of the arguments and the
       behavior of the command.  The following forms are currently supported:

       clipboard append ?-displayof window? ?-format format? ?-type type? ?--? data
              Appends data to the clipboard on window's display in the form given  by  type  with
              the  representation  given  by  format  and  claims  ownership  of the clipboard on
              window's display.

              Type specifies the form in which the selection  is  to  be  returned  (the  desired
              “target”  for conversion, in ICCCM terminology), and should be an atom name such as
              STRING or FILE_NAME; see the  Inter-Client  Communication  Conventions  Manual  for
              complete details.  Type defaults to STRING.

              The  format  argument  specifies the representation that should be used to transmit
              the selection to the requester (the second column of Table 2  of  the  ICCCM),  and
              defaults  to  STRING.   If  format is STRING, the selection is transmitted as 8-bit
              ASCII characters.  If format  is  ATOM,  then  the  data  is  divided  into  fields
              separated by white space; each field is converted to its atom value, and the 32-bit
              atom value is transmitted instead of the atom name.  For any other format,  data is
              divided  into  fields  separated  by  white  space and each field is converted to a
              32-bit integer; an array of integers is transmitted  to  the  selection  requester.
              Note that strings passed to clipboard append are concatenated before conversion, so
              the caller must take care to ensure appropriate spacing across  string  boundaries.
              All items appended to the clipboard with the same type must have the same format.

              The format argument is needed only for compatibility with clipboard requesters that
              do not use Tk.  If the Tk toolkit is being used to retrieve the CLIPBOARD selection
              then  the  value  is converted back to a string at the requesting end, so format is
              irrelevant.

              A -- argument may be specified to mark the end of options:  the next argument  will
              always  be  used  as  data.   This  feature may be convenient if, for example, data
              starts with a -.

       clipboard clear ?-displayof window?
              Claims ownership of the clipboard on window's  display  and  removes  any  previous
              contents.  Window defaults to “.”.  Returns an empty string.

       clipboard get ?-displayof window? ?-type type?
              Retrieve  data  from  the  clipboard  on window's display.  Window defaults to “.”.
              Type specifies the form in which the data is to be returned and should be  an  atom
              name  such  as  STRING  or  FILE_NAME.   Type  defaults to STRING.  This command is
              equivalent to “selection get -selection CLIPBOARD”.

              Note that on modern X11 systems, the most useful type to retrieve  for  transferred
              strings is not STRING, but rather UTF8_STRING.

EXAMPLES

       Get the current contents of the clipboard.
              if {[catch {clipboard get} contents]} {
                  # There were no clipboard contents at all
              }

       Set the clipboard to contain a fixed string.
              clipboard clear
              clipboard append "some fixed string"

       You  can  put  custom  data into the clipboard by using a custom -type option. This is not
       necessarily portable, but can be very useful. The method of passing Tcl scripts  this  way
       is effective, but should be mixed with safe interpreters in production code.
              # This is a very simple canvas serializer;
              # it produces a script that recreates the item(s) when executed
              proc getItemConfig {canvas tag} {
                 set script {}
                 foreach item [$canvas find withtag $tag] {
                    append script {$canvas create } [$canvas type $item]
                    append script { } [$canvas coords $item] { }
                    foreach config [$canvas itemconf $item] {
                       lassign $config name - - - value
                       append script [list $name $value] { }
                    }
                    append script \n
                 }
                 return [string trim $script]
              }

              # Set up a binding on a canvas to cut and paste an item
              set c [canvas .c]
              pack $c
              $c create text 150 30 -text "cut and paste me"
              bind $c <<Cut>> {
                 clipboard clear
                 clipboard append -type TkCanvasItem \
                       [getItemConfig %W current]
                 # Delete because this is cut, not copy.
                 %W delete current
              }
              bind $c <<Paste>> {
                 catch {
                    set canvas %W
                    eval [clipboard get -type TkCanvasItem]
                 }
              }

SEE ALSO

       interp(3tcl), selection(3tk)

KEYWORDS

       clear, format, clipboard, append, selection, type