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kos
Asked: 2015-03-18 01:09:36 +0800 CST

How to copy the stdout of a command to the clipboard in a default Ubuntu installation?

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I ran up against this question, and i found it quite interesting.

While researching for that, i found out that a solution had been posted already here on AskUbuntu, plus multiple times on StackOverflow and on Unix & Linux, but all the solutions provided involved the use of xclip or xsel, which are not available in a default Ubuntu installation (i.e. they're not present in a Live DVD, for example).

Question: How to copy the stdout of a command to the clipboard in a default Ubuntu installation?

clipboard

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Copy stdout to the clipboard without installing additional software

    Although it seemed impossible to me at first (and it is a bit of a detour), it is very well possible without additional software. The only thing needed is python, like it is installed from a fresh install.

    This solution uses python's ability to copy text to the clipboard, and make it available to other applications, as explained (a.o.) here.

    The construction

    • The first step is to create an empty textfile, let's say terminal_log.txt

    • The command(s) that run in the terminal are followed by | tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt, e.g.

      pwd | tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt

      The output will be in the terminal, as well as written to terminal_log.txt

    • Meanwhile, a script (see below) runs in the background, detecting changes to the file
    • If the file is changed, the change will be copied to the clipboard

    The result of the example above:

    pwd | tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt

    If I open gedit and press Ctrl+V

    /home/jacob/Desktop

    How to setup

    1. create an empty (log-) file, terminal_log.txt
    2. Copy the script below into an empty file. In the head section, set the path to terminal_log.txt, save it as read_output.py

    3. Start the script with the command

      python /path/to/read_output.py

    4. Run in (another) terminal your command, followed by:

      | tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt

    5. The output of your command is copied to the clipboard

    If you use it frequently, you could run it as a startup application.

    The script

    #!/usr/bin/env python
import pygtk
pygtk.require('2.0')
import gtk
import time

#--- enter the path to the log file below
f = "/path/to/terminal_log.txt"
#---

output1 = open(f).read().strip()

while True:
    time.sleep(1)
    output2 = open(f).read().strip()
    if output1 != output2:
        tx = output2.replace(output1, "")
        clipboard = gtk.clipboard_get()
        clipboard.set_text(tx)
        clipboard.store()
    output1 = output2


    Additional information

    command | tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt

    Will not copy stderr to the clipboard. To copy both stdout and stderr to the clipboard, use:

    command > >(tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt) 2> >(tee /path/to/terminal_log.txt >&2)

    as explained here

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