OSX Pasteboard

main.lua

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Example
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
local pb = require( "pasteboard" )

pb.copy("Hello osx pasteboard")
print ( pb.paste() )

pb.clear()

pasteboard.lua

-- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--  pasteboard.lua - copy/paste string to pasteboard for Corona SDK Mac OSX builds
-- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

local _M = {}

local lfs = require( "lfs" )

function _M.copy(s)
    if type(s)=="string" then 
        os.execute( [[echo ']]..string.gsub(s, "'", "'\\''")..[[' | pbcopy]] )
    end
end

function _M.paste()

    local stamp = os.time(os.date('*t'))
    local filename = "pb_"..stamp..".txt"
    
    local current_dir = lfs.currentdir ()
    lfs.chdir ( system.pathForFile( "", system.CachesDirectory ) )    
    os.execute( "pbpaste > "..filename )

    local file, errorString, content = io.open( system.pathForFile( filename, system.CachesDirectory ), "r" )
    if file then
        content = file:read( "*a" )
        io.close( file )
    end
    file = nil
    
    os.remove( system.pathForFile( filename, system.CachesDirectory ) )
    lfs.chdir ( current_dir )
    
    return content
end

_M.clear = function() _M.copy('') end

return _M

This is AWESOME! But as written it can run into problems with strings that have single-quotes. If you change line 11 to this:

os.execute( [[echo "]]..string.gsub(s, '"', '\"')..[[" | pbcopy]] )

...then it has no problems with strings containing single-quotes, double-quotes, or any combination of the two, at least in my testing. But huge thanks for coming up with this very useful bit of code!

Thanks. I updated the code.

This is really awesome! Very clever way to get copy/paste functionality into OS X builds in Corona SDK. I'm using this in a project that I will be releasing soon. One thing I didn't like was the CR/LF that got copied with my text. I fixed this by changing "echo" to "printf". That allowed me to copy and paste just the text I needed without the CR/LF.

Thanks. Nice to know.