NAME
Clipboard::Any - Common interface to clipboard manager functions
VERSION
This document describes version 0.013 of Clipboard::Any (from Perl
distribution Clipboard-Any), released on 2025-04-17.
DESCRIPTION
This module provides a common interface to interact with clipboard.
Some terminology:
* clipboard content
The current clipboard content. Some clipboard manager supports
storing multiple items (multiple contents). All the items are called
"clipboard history".
* clipboard history
Some clipboard manager supports storing multiple items (multiple
contents). All the items are called clipboard history. It is
presented as an array. The current item/content is at index 0, the
secondmost current item is at index 1, and so on.
Supported clipboard managers
Klipper
The default clipboard manager on KDE Plasma.
clipit
parcellite
xclip
This is not a "real" clipboard manager, but just an interface to the X
selections. With "xclip", the history is viewed as having two items. The
first/recent is the primary selection and the second one is the
secondary.
This module provides common functions related to clipboard manager.
Supported clipboard manager: KDE Plasma's Klipper ("klipper"),
"parcellite", "clipit", "xclip". Support for more clipboard managers,
e.g. on Windows or other Linux desktop environment is welcome.
NOTES
2021-07-15 - Tested on my system (KDE Plasma 5.12.9 on Linux).
FUNCTIONS
add_clipboard_content
Usage:
add_clipboard_content(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
Add a new content to the clipboard.
For "xclip": when adding content, the primary selection is set. The
clipboard content is unchanged.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
* content => *str*
(No description)
* tee => *bool*
If set to true, will output content back to STDOUT.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
clear_clipboard_content
Usage:
clear_clipboard_content(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
Delete current clipboard content.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
clear_clipboard_history
Usage:
clear_clipboard_history(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
Delete all clipboard items.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
detect_clipboard_manager
Usage:
detect_clipboard_manager() -> str
Detect which clipboard manager program is currently running.
Will return a string containing name of clipboard manager program, e.g.
"klipper". Will return undef if no known clipboard manager is detected.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
No arguments.
Return value: (str)
get_clipboard_content
Usage:
get_clipboard_content(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
Get the clipboard content (most recent, history index [0]).
Caveats for klipper: Non-text item is not retrievable by
getClipboardContents(). If the current item is e.g. an image, then the
next text item from history will be returned instead, or empty string if
none exists.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
get_clipboard_history_item
Usage:
get_clipboard_history_item(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
Get a clipboard history item.
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
* index => *int*
Index of item in history (0 means the current/latest, 1 the second
latest, and so on).
If the index exceeds the number of items in history, empty string or
undef will be returned instead.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
list_clipboard_history
Usage:
list_clipboard_history(%args) -> [$status_code, $reason, $payload, \%result_meta]
List the clipboard history.
Caveats for klipper: 1) Klipper does not provide method to get the
length of history. So we retrieve history item one by one using
getClipboardHistoryItem(i) from i=0, i=1, and so on. And assume that if
we get two consecutive empty string, it means we reach the end of the
clipboard history before the first empty result.
2) Non-text items are not retrievable by getClipboardHistoryItem().
This function is not exported by default, but exportable.
Arguments ('*' denotes required arguments):
* clipboard_manager => *str*
Explicitly set clipboard manager to use.
The default, when left undef, is to detect what clipboard manager is
running.
Returns an enveloped result (an array).
First element ($status_code) is an integer containing HTTP-like status
code (200 means OK, 4xx caller error, 5xx function error). Second
element ($reason) is a string containing error message, or something
like "OK" if status is 200. Third element ($payload) is the actual
result, but usually not present when enveloped result is an error
response ($status_code is not 2xx). Fourth element (%result_meta) is
called result metadata and is optional, a hash that contains extra
information, much like how HTTP response headers provide additional
metadata.
Return value: (any)
HOMEPAGE
Please visit the project's homepage at
<https://metacpan.org/release/Clipboard-Any>.
SOURCE
Source repository is at
<https://github.com/perlancar/perl-Clipboard-Any>.
AUTHOR
perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>
CONTRIBUTING
To contribute, you can send patches by email/via RT, or send pull
requests on GitHub.
Most of the time, you don't need to build the distribution yourself. You
can simply modify the code, then test via:
% prove -l
If you want to build the distribution (e.g. to try to install it locally
on your system), you can install Dist::Zilla,
Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR,
Pod::Weaver::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR, and sometimes one or two
other Dist::Zilla- and/or Pod::Weaver plugins. Any additional steps
required beyond that are considered a bug and can be reported to me.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2025 by perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website
<https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Clipboard-Any>
When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch
to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.