copy from shell and paste in terminal-emacs

Question

How can I copy from the command line and paste in Emacs in terminal mode?

If I select the text with the mouse and paste it from the clipboard with the third button (the wheel) it is OK.

But if I try to run:

$ emacs -nw file_name.sh (for example)

emacs opens the file which I start editing, then I C-z to go back to the terminal.

$ recall a command from the history

go to the beginning of the line and press C-k to kill it

$ fg

go back to Emacs and try to paste it with C-y doesn't work.

Answer 1

You can't copy-paste between Emacs and a shell without using a system-wide copy-paste facility. Text terminals in general do not provide a copy-paste facility.

It seems that you're running this terminal Emacs in a terminal window in a window environment. Window environments do provide copy-paste; that's what happens when you use the mouse. However, this happens outside the knowledge of Emacs and Bash: what you copy is the text that appears on the screen, and what you paste appears to the program as if you'd typed it very quickly.

If you want to integrate Bash's clipboard with the window environment's clipboard, you can use command line copy-paste tools: xsel or xclip on X11, pbcopy/pbpaste on OS X, /dev/clipboard on Cygwin. See Share the clipboard between bash and X11 for the Bash side. You can do something similar on the Emacs side, though it doesn't make that much sense since you can run a window Emacs.

If no window environment is available, you can run both Bash and Emacs inside a terminal multiplexer such as Screen or tmux. Their copy-paste facility suffers the same limitation as the mouse-based one: since it's provided by the terminal, it can only copy output that's on the terminal and provide input as if it came from the terminal.

If you want to exchange data between Emacs and Bash, and no common clipboard is available (e.g. because the programs are running on a remote machine), use a temporary file.

Another possibility is to run your shell within Emacs, as suggested by DoMiNeLa10 . In that case, Emacs provides the copy-paste facility.

Answer 2

If you want to copy-paste easily between a shell and Emacs, you can try using M-x shell from Emacs, instead of running the shell independently. I haven't tried integrating my Emacs and Bash kill rings.

Answer 3

If you are using Windows you can run your emacs -nw within a Cygwin Mintty. Then you can use the mouse to yank/paste from/in Emacs. In default configuration simply use your mouse together with Shift key (<S-mouse-1> to yank, <S-mouse-2> button to paste).
You can change the modifier key via Mintty "Options/Mouse/Modifier for overriding default".

Answer 4

Hope the answer is still relevant.

If you are running Emacs in GNU OS, you can paste the contents of the clipboard (if properly configured; more information: (info "Clipboard")) in a term mode buffer (e.g. "*terminal*" buffer) in Emacs if you press <S-insert> (Shift key + Insert key) which is bound to the function "term-paste" and you can copy to Emacs' kill ring by pressing <C-insert> (Control key + Insert key) which is bound to "kill-ring-save".

What follows is an elisp snippet that you can evaluate in the "*scratch*" buffer (given that it is in "Lisp Interaction mode") and you have a term mode buffer already running (that has the name "*terminal*"), by placing point at the end of the code block and pressing C-j (Control key + "j" key).

(with-current-buffer (get-buffer "*terminal*")
  (print (describe-key-briefly (kbd "<C-insert>")))
  (describe-key-briefly (kbd "<S-insert>")))
  
;; This is the output if I run it in my Emacs.
"<C-insert> runs the command kill-ring-save"
"<S-insert> runs the command term-paste"

Answer 5

If you're using spacemacs you can use clipboard :) https://develop.spacemacs.org/layers/+tools/xclipboard/README.html

It worked for me

Answer 6

The Emacs yank command inserts content located in Emacs' kill-ring. If you copy or cut text from outside of Emacs, the content will go to your clipboard, not to the Emacs kill-ring. This is why the yank command does not work here. However, if you invoke the paste facility of your terminal (usually C-S-v, the right click or the wheel click), your terminal will send the clipboard data to Emacs.