ENH: read_clipboard function using code from IPython, GH #300

RELEASE.rst

@@ -61,6 +61,8 @@ pandas 0.5.1
   - Add bar plot option to `DataFrame.plot` (PR #348)
   - Add `idxmin` and `idxmax` functions to Series and DataFrame for computing
     index labels achieving maximum and minimum values (PR #286)
+  - Add `read_clipboard` function for parsing DataFrame from OS clipboard,
+    should work across platforms (GH #300)
 
 **Improvements to existing features**
 

pandas/__init__.py

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 from pandas.core.api import *
 from pandas.core.common import set_printoptions
 from pandas.core.common import set_eng_float_format
-from pandas.io.parsers import read_csv, read_table, ExcelFile
+from pandas.io.parsers import read_csv, read_table, read_clipboard, ExcelFile
 from pandas.io.pytables import HDFStore
 from pandas.stats.api import *
 from pandas.util.testing import debug

pandas/io/parsers.py

@@ -75,6 +75,19 @@ def read_table(filepath_or_buffer, sep='\t', header=0, index_col=None,
                     nrows=nrows, iterator=iterator, chunksize=chunksize,
                     skip_footer=skip_footer, converters=converters)
 
+def read_clipboard(**kwargs):  # pragma: no cover
+    """
+    Read text from clipboard and pass to read_table. See read_table for the full
+    argument list
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    parsed : DataFrame
+    """
+    from pandas.util.clipboard import clipboard_get
+    text = clipboard_get()
+    return read_table(StringIO(text), **kwargs)
+
 _parser_params = """Also supports optionally iterating or breaking of the file
 into chunks.
 

pandas/util/clipboard.py

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+"""
+Taken from the IPython project http://ipython.org
+
+Used under the terms of the BSD license
+"""
+
+import subprocess
+import sys
+
+def clipboard_get():
+    """ Get text from the clipboard.
+    """
+    if sys.platform == 'win32':
+        try:
+            return win32_clipboard_get()
+        except Exception:
+            pass
+    elif sys.platform == 'darwin':
+        try:
+            return osx_clipboard_get()
+        except Exception:
+            pass
+    return tkinter_clipboard_get()
+
+def win32_clipboard_get():
+    """ Get the current clipboard's text on Windows.
+
+    Requires Mark Hammond's pywin32 extensions.
+    """
+    try:
+        import win32clipboard
+    except ImportError:
+        message = ("Getting text from the clipboard requires the pywin32 "
+            "extensions: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/")
+        raise Exception(message)
+    win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
+    text = win32clipboard.GetClipboardData(win32clipboard.CF_TEXT)
+    # FIXME: convert \r\n to \n?
+    win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
+    return text
+
+def osx_clipboard_get():
+    """ Get the clipboard's text on OS X.
+    """
+    p = subprocess.Popen(['pbpaste', '-Prefer', 'ascii'],
+        stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
+    text, stderr = p.communicate()
+    # Text comes in with old Mac \r line endings. Change them to \n.
+    text = text.replace('\r', '\n')
+    return text
+
+def tkinter_clipboard_get():
+    """ Get the clipboard's text using Tkinter.
+
+    This is the default on systems that are not Windows or OS X. It may
+    interfere with other UI toolkits and should be replaced with an
+    implementation that uses that toolkit.
+    """
+    try:
+        import Tkinter
+    except ImportError:
+        message = ("Getting text from the clipboard on this platform "
+            "requires Tkinter.")
+        raise Exception(message)
+    root = Tkinter.Tk()
+    root.withdraw()
+    text = root.clipboard_get()
+    root.destroy()
+    return text

scripts/boxplot_test.py

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
+
+import random
+import pandas.util.testing as tm
+tm.N = 1000
+df = tm.makeTimeDataFrame()
+import string
+foo = list(string.letters[:5]) * 200
+df['indic'] = list(string.letters[:5]) * 200
+random.shuffle(foo)
+df['indic2'] = foo
+df.boxplot(by=['indic', 'indic2'], fontsize=8, rot=90)
+
+plt.show()