echo "string" | xclip -selection clipboard , copies the 'string' but also adds a new line to it. how to fix this?

Question

this is the command responsible for adding a new line to the string

echo "string" | xclip -selection clipboard

Suggest editing the title of this question to something like 'Prevent xclip from appending newline.' It's a great question, it was just hard to find! — cydonian, Oct 17 '13 at 19:33

tink · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-04T22:31:49.960

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echo -n "string" | xclip -selection clipboard

I should probably have elaborated a bit. The default for echo is to output the string AND a newline. -n suppreses the latter.

edited Jun 04 '13 at 22:31

answered Jun 04 '13 at 21:54

tink

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if you wish to copy current path `echo -n $(pwd) | xclip -selection clipboard` – Ivan Talalaev Apr 28 '17 at 09:21
one improvement for previous command `echo -n ${PWD/ /\\ } | xclip -selection clipboard` backslashes white spaces – Ivan Talalaev Apr 28 '17 at 09:32

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 11 '15 at 12:36

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The more generic solution is to ignore new lines regardless of the input source. For instance, the common use case is to copy to the clipboard a path of the current directory. The command

pwd | xclip -selection clipboard

copies the new line character and this is often not what we want. The solution is the following:

pwd | xargs echo -n | xclip -selection clipboard

You can create an alias to make it more convenient:

alias xclip='xargs echo -n | xclip -selection clipboard'

and from now on use:

pwd | xclip # copied without new line
echo "foo" | xclip # copied without new line

answered Jul 11 '15 at 12:36

Michael Szymczak

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how does adding `pwd` make this "more generic"? :) – tink Nov 28 '18 at 18:25
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If you read carefully, you can see that the generic solution refers to "ignore new lines regardless of the input source". The pwd part is shown as an example and "common use case" why you may want to do it. The last example uses echo as well. – Michael Szymczak Dec 01 '18 at 16:17
And what suggests to you that one wants to get rid of ALL newlines? `(pwd; pwd)| xargs echo -n | xclip -selection clipboard` – tink Apr 16 '22 at 18:23

rools · Answer 3 · 2019-08-08T14:22:44.853

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Since version 0.13 of xclip, you have a generic way that will preserve the inner new lines with the option r or rmlastnl.

So you will have:

pwd | xclip -r # copied without new line
echo "foo" | xclip -r # copied without new line
ps | xclip -r # copied without the last new line!

edited Aug 08 '19 at 14:22

answered May 07 '17 at 09:42

rools

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Requires version 0.13 though – ricab Jun 13 '17 at 20:01
Thanks. I will add that in my answer. – rools Jun 14 '17 at 08:33
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the `-r` did the trick fro me. would have helped if i fully read the man – 4UmNinja Dec 04 '21 at 10:34
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It's been a while since xclip 0.13. This should be the accepted answer and people should update. – N1ngu Jan 04 '23 at 16:21

echo "string" | xclip -selection clipboard , copies the 'string' but also adds a new line to it. how to fix this?

3 Answers3