Copy to clipboard from iPython on Mac OS X

copy.py

"""
Add copy to clipboard from IPython!
To install, just copy it to your profile/startup directory, typically:

    ~/.ipython/profile_default/startup/

Example usage:

    %copy hello world
    # will store "hello world"
    a = [1, 2, 3]
    %copy a
    # will store "[1, 2, 3]"

You can also use it with cell magic

    In [1]: %%copy
       ...: Even multi
       ...: lines
       ...: work!
       ...:

If you don't have a variable named 'copy' you can rely on automagic:

    copy hey man
    a = [1, 2, 3]
    copy a

"""

import subprocess
import sys

from IPython.core.magic import register_line_cell_magic

def _copy_to_clipboard(output):
    output = str(globals().get(output) or output)
    process = subprocess.Popen(
        'pbcopy', env={'LANG': 'en_US.UTF-8'}, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
    process.communicate(output.encode('utf-8'))

    print('Copied to clipboard!')

@register_line_cell_magic
def copy(line, cell=None):
    if line and cell:
        cell = '\n'.join((line, cell))

    _copy_to_clipboard(cell or line)

# We delete it to avoid name conflicts for automagic to work
del copy

For those using pudb, you can use the following to load your magic commands after having opened the ipython shell with !:

import IPython
IPython.start_ipython(argv=[])

This is a great script.

The functionality is such that %copy "hello" copies the literal string "hello" to your clipboard (including the quotes).

If you want it to evaluate the expression first, change line 37 to:

output = str(globals().get(output) or eval(output))

Now %copy "hello" copies the string hello to your clipboard.