copy string to pasteboard

[Daniel Higginbotham]

This code will copy a string to your pasteboard (for mac users):

def pbcopy(string)
IO.popen('pbcopy', 'w'){|p| p << string; p.close_write}
end

I put it in my .irbrc file and use it when I'm trying to debug some code and want to take a closer look at a string outside of terminal

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Boston Ruby Group mailing list
To post to this group, send email to boston-r...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to boston-rubygro...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/boston-rubygroup

[Brian Cardarella]

Daniel,

That's a cool trick. I tend to use the backticks when running
system commands in Ruby. Anything in backticks can accept
interpolation. You could rewrite like this:

def pbcopy(string)
`pbcopy #{string}`
end


- Brian

[Daniel Higginbotham]

In this case you need to send text to pbcopy via standard input, and if you did something like `#{string} | pbcopy` you'd likely get an error like "sh: foo: command not found" . The code below will just hang because pbcopy is waiting for input :D

[Michael Breen]

You can also use %x{} for system commands which I like to use cause I think it stands out just a little more than backticks do.

Best,
Mike

On May 10, 2010, at 6:25 PM, Brian Cardarella wrote:

[Wyatt Greene]

I like %x{} as well.  An obscure fact about Ruby is that you can use other characters instead of {}, so that these are equivalent:

puts `ls`

puts %x{ls}

puts %x|ls|

puts %x-ls-

puts %x&ls&

Now that you know that, forget you ever learned it and never use it in your code. :)

[Brian Cardarella]

Daniel,

My bad, it should be:

def pbcopy(string)
`echo '#{string}' | pbcopy`
end

%x{} is definitely cleaner too.

- Brian

[Steve Harris]

When using popen() or %s{}, remember that (a) stderr is not
redirected, and (b) the child command is launched via the shell; I've
run into subtle bugs which traced back to these factors.

- Steve

[Keenan Brock]

Daniel,

I found that I don't always have access to a string (a). sometimes I want to take standard out (b).

#a

copy('string to clipboard')

#b

copy do

  puts "list of words:"

  %w{strings for the clibpoard}.each { |s| puts s }

end

So here is the version I use

    # thanks:

    # http://stefankst.net/2007/06/05/capture-standard-output-in-ruby/

    # http://judofyr.net/posts/copy-paste-irb.html

    # stick in .irbrc

    def copy(str=nil)

       if block_given?

         old_stdout = $stdout

         output_str = StringIO.new

         $stdout = output_str

         begin

            yield

         ensure

            $stdout = old_stdout

         end

         str=output_str.string

       end

       IO.popen('pbcopy', 'w') { |f| f << str.to_s } unless str.nil?

    end

FWIW/

Keenan

[Daniel Higginbotham]

very cool, thanks!