Linux – Copy/paste across vim without X

clipboardlinuxterminalvim

In vim, "+p pastes from the system clipboard. However, when working remotely over SSH on a non-GUI box, this is not available.

Is it possible to implement copy/paste in this environment?

Merely copying text from the terminal is not sufficient, because it will also copy stuff that's beyond the scope of the file (for example, if using tmux, it copy the full screen because it's all plain text).

Best Answer

One workaround is using (remotely accessed) scratch files to transfer the text:

In case you can SSH back to your own system, you can just :split scp://hostname/path/to/file, put the yanked text there, and :write.

If you can just use SSH from your system to the server box, open Vim locally and access the scratch file from the server: vim scp://server/path/to/file (or just use scp directly).

This is all enabled by the netrw plugin that ships with Vim.

Related Solutions

How to copy text from vim to an external program

The following will work only if vim --version indicates that you have +xterm_clipboard feature. If not, you will have to install extra packages or recompile vim with that feature added.

There are actually two options for this:

"+y

copies to the "usual" clipboard buffer (so you can paste using Ctrl+V, right click and select "Paste" etc), while

"*y

copies to the X11 selection - you can paste from this buffer using middle click.

Note that "* and "+ work both ways. So if you have selected some text in another application, you can paste it into vim using "*p and if you have copied some text (using, say, Ctrl-C) then you can paste it into vim using "+p.

Copy / paste text selections between tmux and the clipboard

Use the following tmux.conf with copy-pipe in the new versions of tmux (1.8+):

set -g mouse on
# To copy:
bind-key -n -t emacs-copy M-w copy-pipe "xclip -i -sel p -f | xclip -i -sel c "

# To paste:
bind-key -n C-y run "xclip -o | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"

prefix+[ into copy-mode
select content with mouse(hold)
M-w to copy that part into system clipboard
C-y the paste it inside tmux, C-v to paste it inside other regular application like web browser.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to copy text from vim to an external program

Copy / paste text selections between tmux and the clipboard

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