## NAME

clipboard - Manipulate Tk clipboard

## SYNOPSIS

$widget->clipboard Option?(args)?

## DESCRIPTION

This command provides an interface to the Tk clipboard, which stores data for later retrieval using the selection mechanism. In order to copy data into the clipboard, clipboardClear must be called, followed by a sequence of one or more calls to clipboardAppend. To ensure that the clipboard is updated atomically, all appends should be completed before returning to the event loop.

The following methods are currently supported:

$widget->clipboardClear
  Claims ownership of the clipboard on $widget's display and removes any previous contents. Returns an empty string.
$widget->clipboardAppend(?-format=>format?,?-type=>type?,?--?,data)
  Appends data to the clipboard on $widget's display in the form given by type with the representation given by format and claims ownership of the clipboard on $widget's display.

Type specifies the form in which the selection is to be returned (the desired ``target'' for conversion, in ICCCM terminology), and should be an atom name such as STRING or FILE_NAME; see the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual for complete details. Type defaults to STRING.

The format argument specifies the representation that should be used to transmit the selection to the requester (the second column of Table 2 of the ICCCM), and defaults to STRING. If format is STRING, the selection is transmitted as 8-bit ASCII characters. See the Selection manual entry for explanation of what happens if format is not STRING. Note that arguments passed to clipboardAppend are concatenated before conversion, so the caller must take care to ensure appropriate spacing across string boundaries. All items appended to the clipboard with the same type must have the same format.

A -- argument may be specified to mark the end of options: the next argument will always be used as data. This feature may be convenient if, for example, data starts with a -.

## KEYWORDS

clear, format, clipboard, append, selection, type