get string from nspasteboard

Question

maybe it's been a long night but I am not able to understand how to check the clipboard for strings

I have been reading the NSPasteboard documentation..

could some one help me out?

This could help: http://www.mobileorchard.com/new-in-iphone-30-tutorial-series-part-3-copy-paste-with-uipasteboard/ — Luke, May 29 '11 at 12:24

score 33 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 15 '14 at 21:17

33

you need to use the following method with stringForType with key NSPasteboardTypeString to read the string value from clipboard.

- (NSString *)stringForType:(NSString *)dataType .

NSPasteboard*  myPasteboard  = [NSPasteboard generalPasteboard];
NSString* myString = [myPasteboard  stringForType:NSPasteboardTypeString];

To do this for iOS with UIPasteBoard use the following code:

UIPasteboard *thePasteboard = [UIPasteboard generalPasteboard];
NSString *pasteboardString = thePasteboard.string;
NSLog(@"%@", pasteboardString);

edited Jan 15 '14 at 21:17

Albert Renshaw

answered May 29 '11 at 12:35

While NSPasteboard is available in OS X v10.0 and later, there are some issues using NSPasteboardTypeString in OS X v10.5 and earlier. In v10.6, many Pasteboard types with have new UTIs and the constants changed. This is probably ancient history, but worth mentioning. Great answer, thank you! – Cory Trese Oct 23 '14 at 15:05

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '18 at 13:20

You can find the Swift 4 version on below for both Mac and iOS.

Mac

    let pasteboard = NSPasteboard.general
    let copiedString = pasteboard.string(forType: .string)

iOS

    let pasteboard = UIPasteboard.general
    let copiedString = pasteboard.string // might be nil value, is an optional variable

2 Answers2