paste string from clipboard into minibuffer in Emacs

2014-04-08 22:17 | Source

bash
emacs
en

First, I find M-Y is easier to press when paste string into minibuffer than old "Shift+Insert". "Ctrl-V" is not supported in some terminals.

Second, integrating some command line clipboard tool into Emacs is better than Emacs X clipboard. Command line tool works in any environment. For example, when you log into a remote server with ssh, your local computer could share clipboard with your Emacs in remote shell. Please note in this example, you need using X11 forward over ssh, usually it's already set up on server.

Here is the code:

(defun paste-from-x-clipboard()
  (interactive)
  (shell-command
   (cond
    (*cygwin* "getclip")
    (*is-a-mac* "pbpaste")
    (t "xsel -ob"))
   1))

(defun my/paste-in-minibuffer ()
  (local-set-key (kbd "M-y") 'paste-from-x-clipboard))

(add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'my/paste-in-minibuffer)