Where is the clipboard data stored in bash?

Question

In bash, I can type Ctrl+u it "cuts" text behind my cursor.

Then when I press Ctrl+y it pastes the text back.

Is there a file where the cut text is stored?

yea, I was just hoping there was a file it saved to so I could access it with another program. — Drew LeSueur, Aug 22 '14 at 16:31
Bash doesn't save the text between restarts, so there is no reason to store it in file at all. — Alexey Shmalko, Aug 22 '14 at 16:33
If you want to manipulate clipboard take a look at [xclip](http://sourceforge.net/projects/xclip/). — , Aug 22 '14 at 16:43
@jimmij, the X clipboard is separate from the kill ring, which is what ctrl+u and ctrl+y manipulate (and what is referred to by this question). — Charles Duffy, Aug 22 '14 at 16:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 22 '14 at 16:44

The "clipboard" -- actually called the kill ring -- is implemented by the readline library. It is not persistent, so it is not saved in a file.

There are lots of keystroke commands for "kill"ing and "yank"ing text, which are described in the bash manual:

Killing text means to delete the text from the line, but to save it away for later use, usually by yanking (re-inserting) it back into the line. (‘Cut’ and ‘paste’ are more recent jargon for ‘kill’ and ‘yank’.)

More complete documentation is in this section of the manual.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 22 '14 at 20:21

xsel can copy and paste to three different "clipboards". By default, it uses the X Window System primary selection, which is basically whatever is currently in selection. The X Window System also has a secondary selection (which isn't used much), and a clipboard selection. You're probably looking for the clipboard selection, since that's what the desktop environment (e.g. Gnome, KDE, XFCE) uses for its clipboard. To use that with xsel:

xsel --clipboard < new-clipboard-contents.txt
xsel --clipboard > current-clipboard-contents.txt

or use this link

Where is the clipboard data stored in bash?

2 Answers2