Copying to the clipboard in Java

I want to set the user's clipboard to a string in a Java console application. Any ideas?

Use the [Toolkit][1] to get the [system clipboard][2]. Create a [StringSelection][3] with the String and add it to the Clipboard.

Simplified:

StringSelection selection = new StringSelection(theString);
Clipboard clipboard = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
clipboard.setContents(selection, selection);

[1]: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/awt/Toolkit.html "class in java.awt" [2]: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/awt/Toolkit.html#getSystemClipboard "getSystemClipboard()" [3]: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/awt/datatransfer/StringSelection.html "class in java.awt.datatransfer"

Here is a simple SSCCE to accomplish this:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import java.io.*;

class ClipboardTest
{
	public static void main(String[] args)
		throws UnsupportedFlavorException, IOException
	{
		Clipboard c = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
		StringSelection testData;

		//  Add some test data

		if (args.length > 0)
			testData = new StringSelection( args[0] );
		else
			testData = new StringSelection( "Test Data" );

		c.setContents(testData, testData);

		//  Get clipboard contents, as a String

		Transferable t = c.getContents( null );

		if ( t.isDataFlavorSupported(DataFlavor.stringFlavor) )
		{
			Object o = t.getTransferData( DataFlavor.stringFlavor );
			String data = (String)t.getTransferData( DataFlavor.stringFlavor );
			System.out.println( "Clipboard contents: " + data );
		}

		System.exit(0);
	}
}

For anyone still stumbling upon this post searching for the JavaFX way to accomplish this, here you go:

ClipboardContent content = new ClipboardContent();
content.putString("Some text");
content.putHtml("<b>Bold</b> text");
Clipboard.getSystemClipboard().setContent(content);

For further information, read the documentation.

If you are on Linux and using OpenJDK, it will not work. You must use the Sun JDK on Linux for it to work.

In Linux with xclip:

Runtime run = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process p = null;
String str = "hello";
try {
        p = run.exec(new String[]{"sh", "-c", "echo " + str + " | xclip -selection clipboard"});
}
catch (Exception e) {
    System.out.println(e);
}