Johnny Matthews | Copy file contents to clipboard.

I often fine myself needing to copy the contents of a file into the system clipboard while fiddling around in the terminal. So I created a quick little function to help me. This was written on 12th of January 2021.

Copying files is fun. Most of the time.

  1. Open the RC file for your shell. I’m using ZSH, so I need to open ~/.zshrc.

  2. Create a new function called copy:

    function copy() {

}

  3. Within the function, use cat to return the contents of a file:

    function copy() {
    cat $1 
}

    We’re using the $1 variable since we’re going to pass in the file that we want to copy.

  4. Pipe the output of cat to xclip:

    function copy() {
    cat $1 | xclip -i
}

    The -i option tells xclip to expect content from standard input.

  5. Tell xclip that we want to add this content to the secondary clipboard:

    function copy() {
    cat $1 | xclip -i -seletion clipboard
}

    In Ubuntu/Debian based Linux distributions, the main clipboard is accessed using the middle mouse button. Since I never use a mouse, this functionality is useless to me, so I need to address the regular clipboard.

  6. Save and exit the RC file.

  7. Source the file to get the updates:

    source ~/.zshrc

    Make sure to source your actual RC file. The destination might be different to what I’ve got here.

  8. You should now be able to copy the contents of a file using copy filename:

    echo "This is a test." >> test.txt
copy test.txt

    Pressing ctrl + v should now paste This is a test.! Don’t forget to add your RC file to version control like Git!