get text from the windows clipboard, or put text into clipboard from within batch files using sfk fromclip and toclip on the command line.

• Download the free Swiss File Knife Base from Sourceforge.
• Open the Windows CMD command line, Mac OS X Terminal or Linux shell.
• OS X : type mv sfk-mac-64.exe sfk and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
• Linux: type mv sfk-linux-64.exe sfk and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk. OS X and Linux syntax may differ, check the help within the tool.

sfk toclip
 copy stdin to clipboard as plain text.
 type test.txt | sfk toclip
 copies the content of ASCII file test.txt into clipboard.
 sfk list | sfk toclip
 copies a file listing of the current dir into clipboard.

sfk fromclip [-wait] [-clear]
 dump plain text content from clipboard to terminal.
-wait : block until plain text is available.
-clear: empty the clipboard after reading it.

Example: turn backslashes into forward slashes.

Imagine you have the following text open within notepad:

foo/bar/systems/alpha1.cpp
foo/bar/systems/alpha2.cpp
foo/bar/systems/beta1.cpp

and for some reason you need the first line in a format like this:

foo\bar\systems\alpha1.cpp

then you may do it this way:

1. mark the first line using SHIFT + CURSOR keys.
2. press CTRL+C or CTRL+INSERT to copy it into clipboard
3. on the windows command line, run this command (e.g. from a batch):

sfk fromclip +filter -rep x/x\x +toclip

4. back in the editor, press CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT,
pasting the result from the clipboard.

As you see, the line changed into "foo\bar\systems\alpha1.cpp".

Example: reformat a spreadsheet line for further processing.

Imagine you have the following Excel file open:



and you need the data from line 3 as comma separated values.
Now, if you click left into line 3:



and press CTRL+C, the line is copied into clipboard, however as TAB-
separated data. (at least that's the behaviour seen with Excel.
Other packages like OpenOffice may behave different.)
So if you say on the command line:

sfk fromclip

what you get is

Foo Finance     4498542 1999    950     Dino

how do you turn this into comma-separated values?
we have 5 columns, therefore extend the above command like this
[type the following all in ONE line]:

sfk fromclip +filter -spat -sep "\t" 
-form "$col1;$col2;$col3;$col4;$col5"

which will result in this output:

Foo Finance;4498542;1999;950;Dino

to make the data even safer for post-processing, we may surround
every value by quotes this way [type the following all in ONE line]:

sfk fromclip +filter -spat -sep "\t" 
-form "\"$col1\";\"$col2\";\"$col3\";\"$col4\";\"$col5\""

this is hard to type, of course, but if you place it into a .bat
file, you only have to type it once. this results in:

"Foo Finance";"4498542";"1999";"950";"Dino"

As ever, the same result may be achieved in may ways.
For example, you may also save the whole spreadsheet data
as a comma-separated file, and then filter it by

sfk filter export.csv "-+Foo Finance"

which should produce the same line.
 

sfk toclip
 copy stdin to clipboard as plain text.
 type test.txt | sfk toclip
 copies the content of ASCII file test.txt 
into clipboard.
 sfk list | sfk toclip
 copies a file listing of the current dir 
into clipboard.

sfk fromclip [-wait] [-clear]
 dump plain text content from clipboard to 
terminal.
-wait : block until plain text is available.
-clear: empty the clipboard after 
        reading it.

Example: turn backslashes into forward 
          slashes.

Imagine you have the following text open 
within notepad:

foo/bar/systems/alpha1.cpp
foo/bar/systems/alpha2.cpp
foo/bar/systems/beta1.cpp

and for some reason you need the first line 
in a format like this:

foo\bar\systems\alpha1.cpp

then you may do it this way:

1. mark the first line using SHIFT + CURSOR 
keys. 2. press CTRL+C or CTRL+INSERT to
copy it into clipboard 3. on the windows
command line, run this command (e.g. from a
batch):

sfk fromclip +filter -rep x/x\x +toclip

4. back in the editor, press CTRL+V or 
SHIFT+INSERT, pasting the result from the
clipboard.

As you see, the line changed into "foo\bar\
systems\alpha1.cpp".

Example: reformat a spreadsheet line for 
          further processing.

Imagine you have the following Excel 
file open:



and you need the data from line 3 as comma 
separated values. Now, if you click left
into line 3:



and press CTRL+C, the line is copied into 
clipboard, however as TAB- separated data.
(at least that's the behaviour seen with
Excel. Other packages like OpenOffice may
behave different.) So if you say on the
command line:

sfk fromclip

what you get is

Foo Finance     4498542 1999    950     Dino

how do you turn this into comma-separated 
values? we have 5 columns, therefore
extend the above command like this [type
the following all in ONE
line]:

sfk fromclip +filter -spat -sep "\t" 
-form "$col1;$col2;$col3;$col4;$col5"

which will result in this output:

Foo Finance;4498542;1999;950;Dino

to make the data even safer for 
post-processing, we may surround every
value by quotes this way [type the
following all in ONE l
ine]:

sfk fromclip +filter -spat -sep "\t" 
-form "\"$col1\";\"$col2\";\"$col3\";\
"$col4\";\"$col5\""

this is hard to type, of course, but if you 
place it into a .bat file, you only have
to type it once. this results
in:

"Foo Finance";"4498542";"1999";"950";"Dino"

As ever, the same result may be achieved in 
may ways. For example, you may also save
the whole spreadsheet data as a
comma-separated file, and then filter it
by

sfk filter export.csv "-+Foo Finance"

which should produce the same line.
 

read more about all sfk functions