Execute text from the OS X clipboard.

`pbpaste` | pbcopy

The backtick operator, in general, will execute the text inside the backticks. On OS X, the pbpaste command will put the contents of the OS X clipboard to STDOUT. So if you put backticks around pbpaste, the text from the OS X clipboard is executed. If you add the pipeline | pbcopy, the output from executing the command on the clipboard is placed back on the clipboard. Note: make sure the clipboard is text only.

Sample Output

abd-pb-2:~ andrew$ str="ls -l -G"        #assign a command to str
abd-pb-2:~ andrew$ echo $str             #show that it is there
ls -l -G
abd-pb-2:~ andrew$ echo $str | pbcopy    #put that command on the clipboard
abd-pb-2:~ andrew$ `pbpaste` | pbcopy    #execute the command and put output on clipboard

# command on clipboard could come from any source...

By: drewk

2009-09-21 23:10:11

Os X bash osx pipes

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What Others Think

May not want to copy something bad like "rm -rf ~" or something of the sort :) Could be malicious if used by someone who isn't careful. Nevertheless, +1

kaedenn · 761 weeks and 3 days ago

Excellent example: man ls

drewk · 761 weeks and 3 days ago

Sorry -- I was looking at the example comment instead of your comment! Right -- be careful what is on the clipboard. Same with "sudo !!" You don't get to see what is in the command history before giving it root privileges and executing!

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What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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Transfers clipboard content from one OS X machine to another

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