Read from clipboard

[danielsjf]

I was wondering if reading from a clipboard will be supported in the future? There was an earlier issue which provided a work-around, but it doesn't seem to work anymore.

> x <- readr::read_csv(file("clipboard"))
Error in read_connection_(con) : can only read from a binary connection
> x <- readr::read_csv(file("clipboard", open = 'rb'))
Error in file("clipboard", open = "rb") : 
  'mode' for the clipboard must be 'r' or 'w'

read_csv can only read from a binary connection while the connection itself only allows for non-binary connections.

Using the base functions, this is quite straightforward.

> x <- read.csv("clipboard", sep = '\t')
> x
  a b c
1 1 2 3
2 4 5 6

[jennybc]

Here's another workaround that uses clipr and works today:

library(tidyverse)
library(clipr)

txt <- "v1,v2\n1.1,1.2\n2.1,2.2"
read_csv(txt)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>      v1    v2
#>   <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1   1.1   1.2
#> 2   2.1   2.2
write_clip(txt)
read_csv(paste(read_clip(), collapse = "\n"))
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>      v1    v2
#>   <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1   1.1   1.2
#> 2   2.1   2.2

[msberends]

May I ask why this will not be supported?
read_delim is so much better than the base alternatives! Except for this fact...

[jimhester]

It is supported. Either use @jennybc's example of clipr (which works the same across platforms), or do it with readLines and file("clipboard").

read_csv(paste(readLines(file("clipboard"))), collapse = "\n"))

[msberends]

@jimhester That's a great suggestion. But why not comply with base R, so

read_csv("clipboard")

would internally be treated as

read_csv(paste(readLines(file("clipboard"))), collapse = "\n"))

?

It think it is far more convenient for users, and should not be too much work for the readr developers. I would even create a pull request myself if you would allow this translation 😉

[jimhester]

#732 implements read_csv("clipboard") to read from the system clipboard.

clipr::write_clip("a,b,c\n1,2,3")
readr::read_csv("clipboard")
#> # A tibble: 1 x 3
#>       a     b     c
#>   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1  1.00  2.00  3.00

[msberends]

You sir, are fantastic 👍

[lock]

This old issue has been automatically locked. If you believe you have found a related problem, please file a new issue (with reprex) and link to this issue. https://reprex.tidyverse.org/