Python - Getting and setting clipboard data with subprocesses

Question

I recently discovered from this post a way to get and set clipboard data in python via subprocesses, which is exactly what I need for my project.

import subprocess

def getClipboardData():
    p = subprocess.Popen(['pbpaste'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    retcode = p.wait()
    data = p.stdout.read()
    return data

def setClipboardData(data):
    p = subprocess.Popen(['pbcopy'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
    p.stdin.write(data)
    p.stdin.close()
    retcode = p.wait()

However it only seems to work on the OS X operating system. How can I recreate this functionality across windows, mac and linux?

UPDATE

Using my original code and the windows solution bigbounty provided, I guess I only need a solution for linux now. Perhaps something utilizing xclip or xsel?

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 14 '17 at 21:11

For Linux you could use your original code using the xclip utility instead of pbpaste/pbcopy:

import subprocess

def getClipboardData():
    p = subprocess.Popen(['xclip','-selection', 'clipboard', '-o'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    retcode = p.wait()
    data = p.stdout.read()
    return data

def setClipboardData(data):
    p = subprocess.Popen(['xclip','-selection','clipboard'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
    p.stdin.write(data)
    p.stdin.close()
    retcode = p.wait()

xclip's parameters:

-selection clipboard: operates over the clipboard selection (X Window have multiple "clipboards"
-o: read from desired selection

You should notice that this solution operates over binary data. To storing a string you can use:

setClipboardData('foo'.encode())

And lastly if you are willing to use your program within a shell piping look my question about a issue.

Thanks for your answer, however I already found an alternative method for solving my problem. — DejaVu_Loop, Jun 20 '17 at 17:42

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '17 at 02:53

2

For windows,

import win32clipboard

# set clipboard data
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
win32clipboard.SetClipboardText('testing 123')
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

# get clipboard data
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
data = win32clipboard.GetClipboardData()
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
print data

Single library across all platforms - http://coffeeghost.net/2010/10/09/pyperclip-a-cross-platform-clipboard-module-for-python/

answered May 09 '17 at 02:53

bigbounty

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I took a look at pyperclip earlier. Does this still have the same get and set functionality as win32, or is it only limited to copying and pasting strings? – DejaVu_Loop May 09 '17 at 02:57
I haven't tried it actually.But I found the idea interesting – bigbounty May 09 '17 at 03:02
Just checked the source code. Only functions are `copy()` and `paste()` – DejaVu_Loop May 09 '17 at 03:15
May be not robust..better write seperate programs – bigbounty May 09 '17 at 03:15

Python - Getting and setting clipboard data with subprocesses

2 Answers2