NAME
       clipboard - Manipulate Tk clipboard

SYNOPSIS
       clipboard option ?arg arg ...?


DESCRIPTION
       This command provides a Tcl interface to the Tk clipboard,
       which stores data for later retrieval using the  selection
       mechanism.   In  order  to  copy  data into the clipboard,
       clipboard clear must be called, followed by a sequence  of
       one or more calls to clipboard append.  To ensure that the
       clipboard is updated atomically,  all  appends  should  be
       completed before returning to the event loop.

       The  first  argument to clipboard determines the format of
       the rest of the arguments and the behavior of the command.
       The following forms are currently supported:


       clipboard clear ?-displayof window?
              Claims  ownership of the clipboard on window's dis-
              play and removes  any  previous  contents.   Window
              defaults to ``.''.  Returns an empty string.

       clipboard  append  ?-displayof  window?  ?-format  format?
       ?-type type? ?--? data
              Appends  data  to the clipboard on window's display
              in the form given by type with  the  representation
              given  by  format and claims ownership of the clip-
              board on window's display.

              Type specifies the form in which the  selection  is
              to  be returned (the desired ``target'' for conver-
              sion, in ICCCM terminology), and should be an  atom
              name  such  as  STRING or FILE_NAME; see the Inter-
              Client Communication Conventions  Manual  for  com-
              plete details.  Type defaults to STRING.

              The  format  argument  specifies the representation
              that should be used to transmit  the  selection  to
              the  requester (the second column of Table 2 of the
              ICCCM), and  defaults  to  STRING.   If  format  is
              STRING, the selection is transmitted as 8-bit ASCII
              characters.  If format is ATOM, then  the  data  is
              divided  into fields separated by white space; each
              field is converted  to  its  atom  value,  and  the
              32-bit  atom  value  is  transmitted instead of the
              atom name.  For any other format,  data is  divided
              into fields separated by white space and each field
              is converted to a 32-bit integer; an array of inte-
              gers  is  transmitted  to  the selection requester.
              Note that strings passed to  clipboard  append  are
              concatenated  before conversion, so the caller must
              take care  to  ensure  appropriate  spacing  across
              string boundaries.  All items appended to the clip-
              board with the same type must have the same format.

              The  format argument is needed only for compatibil-
              ity with clipboard requesters that  don't  use  Tk.
              If  the  Tk  toolkit  is being used to retrieve the
              CLIPBOARD selection then  the  value  is  converted
              back  to  a string at the requesting end, so format
              is irrelevant.

              A -- argument may be specified to mark the  end  of
              options:   the next argument will always be used as
              data.  This feature may be convenient if, for exam-
              ple, data starts with a -.


KEYWORDS
       clear, format, clipboard, append, selection, type
