Get Clipboard Text as String

[n00b3]

Hello,

I am writing a c++ program for windows using the API. My program needs to be able to get some text from the clipboard, import it to the program's scope as a string, and do work on the string.

[what I have tried]

cout << GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT) << endl;
cout << GetClipboardData(CF_UNICODETEXT) << endl;

Both of these printed/returned zero, which, msdn says, means the functions failed.
I found the MSDN documentation wanting...an example would have been nice.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms907128.aspx
Even if the above functions returned a non-zero result, I am not sure how I would use the returned data handle to get the data as a string.

[other ideas]
I could post a paste message to a temporary text file, then import the text using fstream, but this is rather a backwards way of going about it.

I am hoping someone would please shed some light on how to get text from the clipboard as a string into my c++ program.

Thanks,

[Nick Evan]

I guess you forgot to open the clipboard first:

HANDLE clip;
    if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) 
        clip = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT);

Now 'clip' is the adress of the first character of the data on clipboard.

So to print it: cout << (char*) clip;

[SirDorius]

I tried to cout the text in the clipboard with this

HANDLE clip;
    if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) 
        clip = GetClipboardData(CF_UNICODETEXT);
    string text;
    while (clip != 0)
    {
	text += *clip;
	clip++;
    }
    cout << text;

But it isn't working because a handle can't be dereferenced with *handle. So, how DO you dereference a handle?

EDIT: Oh sorry, didn't see your edit, never mind

[Nick Evan]

EDIT: Oh sorry, didn't see your edit, never mind

Yeah, I made a silly mistake, which I only noticed after 15 minutes... I was kind of hoping that no-one had copied the code already :)

[SirDorius]

sorry, I still can't make it work... if I try clip++ to move to the next character it says HANDLE: unkown size. How am I supposed to do that?

[Nick Evan]

It says 'HANDLE: unknown size' because HANDLE is actually another way to write (void*). So you need to tell te compiler what type of var it is:

HANDLE clip;
if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) 
    clip = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT);
cout << (char*)clip; // HANDLE==void*, so cast it

offtopic:
Is this somesort of homework? Because two people show interest at exactly the same moment?

[mitrmkar]

A note regarding clipboard usage, whenever you successfully open the clipboard, don't forget to close it by calling CloseClipboard() when you're done with the clipboard operations.

[Alex Edwards]

A note regarding clipboard usage, whenever you successfully open the clipboard, don't forget to close it by calling CloseClipboard() when you're done with the clipboard operations.

I swear to god I'm starting get my coding confused after seeing that...

Feels like CSharp when you use uppercased methods, when really it's C++...

Or maybe it's not, since I've heard that the Windows API isn't meant specifically for the C language.

[n00b3]

Thanks for the rapid solution!

HANDLE clip;
        
    if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) {
      clip = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT);
      CloseClipboard();
    }
    string text;
    text = (char*)clip;
    cout << (char*)clip << " same as " << text << endl;

    //=== - O R - ====
    
    unsigned int i = 0;
    text = "";

    while (((char *)clip)[i] != 0) {
      text += ((char *)clip)[i];
      i++;
    }

    cout << text << endl;;

    //=== - O R - ====

    text = "";
    char* pntchr = (char*)clip;

    while (*pntchr != 0) {
      text += *pntchr;
      pntchr++;
    }

    cout << text << endl;

all the above versions of the code output the same text. Thanks again!

p.s. definitely not my homework, though i do work from home ;)

[SirDorius]

offtopic:
Is this somesort of homework? Because two people show interest at exactly the same moment?

Nope, I don't even know the original poster. I was just browsing around and I found it an interesting topic.
And thanks for all the help!

It seems characters are stored once every 2 bytes in the clipboard (the second is always 0) so you have to increment the pointer by 2 if you want to type all the characters

[mitrmkar]

HANDLE clip;
        
    if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) {
      clip = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT);
      CloseClipboard();
    }

    < snip >

That was not what I meant to say, below is a basic scheme for doing the intended clipboard operation ... it adds the step of locking/unlocking the respective global memory block

if (OpenClipboard(NULL)) 
{
	// Try grabbing a handle to the non-UNICODE text data
	const HANDLE hglb = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT); 

	if (hglb != NULL) 
	{ 
		// Try locking the memory block getting a pointer 
		// to the start of the data

		const char * lptstr = (const char *) GlobalLock(hglb);

		if (lptstr != NULL) 
		{ 
			// got it, however, don't make any assumptions 
			// like the data being NULL-terminated and such ...

			// here you can utilize the lptstr pointer ...

			// done, unlock the memory block ...
			GlobalUnlock(hglb); 
		} 
	} 

	// All done with the clipboard operations, close it
	CloseClipboard();
}

Related samples here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms649016(VS.85).aspx

[Panda_007]

Thnks for the code it's realy helpful for me