UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am trying to use the following perl code with urxvt terminal emulator to make using the X clipboard easier to deal with.

Code:

#! /usr/bin/perl

sub on_sel_grab {
    my $query=quotemeta $_[0]->selection;
    $query=~ s/\n/\\n/g;
    $query=~ s/\r/\\r/g;
    system( "echo -en " . $query . " | xsel -i -b -p" );
}

When utilising the script it does not behave as expected and also pastes the "-en" part of the echo command in the output.

For example, If it select "foo-bar" from urxvt and paste it into a text editor, it ends up as "-en foo-bar". I've been googling, reading perl documentation and trying to alter the code to make it work with no success.

the original information about it's usage can be found here: Rxvt-unicode - ArchWiki

perl -v
This is perl, v5.10.1 (*) built for x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi
urxvt version = 9.06-3
I am using Debian Sid

Thanks

You change the following in your script as follows.

Code:

system( "echo -en $query | xsel -i -b -p" );

Because,Perl will interpolate the variables inside the double-quotes("").

Thanks vivekraj,

I updated the code as suggested but it still adds "-en" to the pasted output?

I pasted the updated script into this thread using urxvt and this is how it turned out. Interestingly it appears to have added a carriage return halfway through line 5 as well.

Code:

-en #! /usr/bin/perl

sub on_sel_grab {
    my $query = quotemeta $_[0]->selection;
    $query =~ s/
/\n/g;
    $query =~ s/ /\r/g;
    system( "echo -en $query | xsel -i -b -p" );
}

Perhaps it is an issue with urxvt?

---------- Post updated at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:24 PM ----------

Thanks to a kind Arch Linux user who emailed me the solution as follows

----------

>$ echo -en foobar
>-en foobar

This is caused by dash which doesn't know -e (it's always on), you should use just "echo -n".

Debian's main shell switch to dash is a real bothersome one.