how to purge the x selection/clipboard?

[Javier]

Why this is not purging the x selection/clipboard?

xsel -dp; xsel -db; xsel -ds; # This doesn't work
xsel -cp; xsel -cb; xsel -cs; # This doesn't work either

echo | xsel -ip # works, but there's a newline in the selection
printf '' | xsel -ip # This has no effect the selection

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <osedncYOkqF0XgXB...@brightview.co.uk>,

I've been bitten by this one, too.

But note:
1) I think it has to do with the fact that -d is ambiguous between being
the usual XToolkit option for DISPLAY and being a tool-specific option for
delete.
2) --delete works

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[Javier]

> 1) I think it has to do with the fact that -d is ambiguous between being
> the usual XToolkit option for DISPLAY and being a tool-specific option for
> delete.
> 2) --delete works

You are right that -d is a bad option name for an X program.

In any case, I am testing --delete and it doesn't do anything at all.

xsel --delete --primary
xsel --delete --clipboard

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <wsCdnYfuroAcewXB...@brightview.co.uk>,

It works for me:

$ xsel -ip <<< "THis is a test"
$ xsel -p
THis is a test
$ xsel -p --delete
$ xsel -p
$

(That's how I tested it. I doubt the option order matters.)

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Thats nothing, cause if you play it forwards, it installs Windows."

[Javier]

> It works for me:
>
> $ xsel -ip <<< "THis is a test"
> $ xsel -p
> THis is a test
> $ xsel -p --delete
> $ xsel -p
> $

'xsel --delete --primary' doesn't clear the primary selection in xterm,
the highlighted text is still there. However, if I type 'echo | xsel -ip'
the highlighted text goes away.

My guess is that Xterm is making things more complex using CUT_BUFFER0
in addition to the PRIMARY selection. Sometimes I even get text selected
long time ago in some other xterm window when clearing the selection.

From xterm(1):

~Meta <Btn1Down>:select-start()
<BtnUp>:select-end(SELECT, CUT_BUFFER0) \n
~Ctrl ~Meta <Btn2Up>:insert-selection(SELECT, CUT_BUFFER0)

I don't understand the difference between SELECT, CUT_BUFFER0 and
PRIMARY.

The workaround I'm using now is

echo | xsel --input --primary # puts a newline in the primary selection
# and clears the XTerm highlighted text

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <wsCdnYfuroAcewXB...@brightview.co.uk>,
Javier <jav...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Update: I just had an instance where --delete didn't work for me (as well).

It does seem to be a little murky. The clipboard implementation in X is
kinda weird/primitive, although elegant in a certain way.

As you say in a later followup, it seems to be dependent on which
"xterm-like" terminal program you're running. I just had an instance
running in LXterminal where:

xsel --delete -b

didn't do anything. The contents of the -b clipboard stayed intact.

However, the following worked in this instance, and I *think* that it will
always work:

xsel -ib < /dev/null

P.S. There is some functionality of xsel where it "backgrounds" itself.
That is, you do a "ps" listing and it shows "xsel" processes running in the
background. The "man page" explains this, but it never made any sense to
me. In any case, you might try killing these processes; that may cause the
clipboard contents to vanish. Worth a try...

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