xpaste

A Windows utility that simply dumps the clipboard data to stdout.

Tiny and safe, xpaste includes format checks and has zero dependencies.

Usage: xpaste --[cr]lf (by default keep an original line ending).

xclip

A Windows utility that copy text from stdin or command line arguments to the clipboard.

Tiny and safe, xclip includes charset checks and has zero dependencies, including on the standard library.

Usage (by default, think stdin UTF-8 encoded):

x-clip: [-a|--ansi[i] | -u|--ucs2|--unicode] <<< DATA
        [--] string to copy

Examples:

$ xclip < utf8.txt # tail line endings are always trimmed
$ cat uincode-list.txt | x-clip -u
$ xclip -- here is a line to copy
$ xclip here is another line to copy
$ xclip --help # equals with empty arguments

Useful bash snippets

Th snippet below supports:

• copy using stdin/arguments & paste using stdout
• paste to a file by paste a.txt
• paste to a local variable by paste -var foo
• copy a file's content by clip a.txt

function xpaste() {
  local arg=$1
  if test "$arg" == "-var" -a -n "$2"; then
    # paste from clipboard into a global bash variable
    declare -g "$2"="$(exec "$MSYS_ROOT"/usr/bin/xpaste.exe --lf)"
    return
  fi
  test "${arg#-}" != "$arg" && shift || arg=
  if test -n "$1"; then
    "$MSYS_ROOT"/usr/bin/xpaste.exe $arg >"$1"
  else
    "$MSYS_ROOT"/usr/bin/xpaste.exe $arg
  fi
}
function xclip() {
  local arg=$1
  if test -n "$arg" && test -f "$arg"; then
    shift
    "$MSYS_ROOT"/usr/bin/xclip.exe "$@" <"$arg"
  else
    "$MSYS_ROOT"/usr/bin/xclip.exe "$@"
  fi
}
alias paste=xpaste clip=xclip

License

It's made by Dahan Gong and released under the MIT license.

The initial code of xpaste is from @neosmart.