KDE clipboard on the command line

The attached python script clip.py makes it easy to use the KDE clipboard on the command line.

Basic usage

For the following examples it is assumed that the script is available in the search path as clip.

• clip
  gives the content of the clipboard. You can use the switch -i 2 to obtain historic contents, here item number 2, of the clipboard (note that -i 0 refers to the current content).
• clip "some text"
  Put "some text" into the clipboard.
• ps | clip -
  Put the output of some program, here ps, into the clipboard.

Some examples

• ssh $(clip)
  Connect to the server whose hostname is contained in the clipboard.
• clip long_file_name
  Use the autocompletion of the shell to copy filenames conveniently to the clipboard.
• cat todo | clip -
  Copy the content of files, here todo, to the clipboard.

KDE3 vs. KDE4

As TGarland pointed out in the comments, KDE4 uses dbus instead of dcop. The attached clip.py file works for KDE4. If you are still using KDE3 (from personal experience: KDE4 is a very worthy update) you can download clip3.py.

Attachment: 

clip.py.gz

clip3.py.gz