In reference to the windows clip the fclip (see Changes) fileclip command copies files to the windows clipboard or pastes them from it.

Breaking change in v2.1

At some point (mid 2022[?]) Microsoft introduced a fclip.exe (C:\Windows\System32\fclip.exe) which is totatlly unrelated to this project! Due to this fact the fclip project now deploys a fileclip.exe.

fileclip [-v | file1 [file2 [... [fileN]]]]

If you'd like a stable version use the release provided.

Example:

> fileclip file1.dat ..\file2.dat "C:\long folder\file3.dat" "C:\file4.dat"

fileclip supports relative and absolute paths. Moreover the path existence is checked before modifying the clipboard data. If a path does not exist fileclip returns INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES wich is equivalent to -1.

> fileclip file-does-not-exist.dat
> echo %ERRORLEVEL%
-1

Press ctrl + v to paste the files.

> fileclip -v

fileclip -v checks if the clipboard contains a file reference and pastes it to the current location. It simulates pressing ctrl + v.

> fileclip
fileclip Version 2.2.0

• v2.3.3

  • Bug(s)
    • Issue #7
    • Exception if file exists and gets pasted by CF_HDROP.
  • Change(s):
    • Display error message if there's nothing to paste.
    • Skip files which cannot be pasted (print to stderr).

• v2.3

  • Change(s):
    • Display usage information when starting fileclip without parameter.
    • Keep console window open when executing fileclip via the explorer (e.g. double-click).
    • Display last error on stderr if copying fails.
    • Error message in english only.
  • Develop:
    • LastError class to facilitate message retrieval of GetLastError error codes.

• v2.2

  • Bug(s)
    • Fallback to paste by CF_HDROP if FILECONTENTS is not available.
  • Develop:
    • Enumerating clipboard formats in DEBUG mode.

• v2.1 Breaking Changes

  • Change(s): fclip becomes fileclip executable.
  • Develop: vscode project fully integrates cmake with gcc.

• v2.0 Major Changes

  • Bug(s):
    • support of relative file names (..\..\file.dat)
    • return value on copy failure (-1)
  • Change(s):
    • 64-bit only (since its 2022)
    • fclip version info
  • Develop:

    • UNICODE-only support:

      Windows natively supports Unicode strings for UI elements, file names, and so forth. Unicode is the preferred character encoding, because it supports all character sets and languages. Windows represents Unicode characters using UTF-16 encoding, in which each character is encoded as one or two 16-bit values.

      —microsoft.com

    • CMake build system

    • Increased verbosity

• cmake
• gcc (MinGW-w64)

Building is known to work with:

> cmake --version
cmake version 3.26.1

> g++ --version
g++.exe (x86_64-win32-seh-rev2, Built by MinGW-W64 project) 12.2.0

> systeminfo

OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
OS Version:                10.0.19041 N/A Build 19041

By default %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps should be available within your PATH environment variable. So copying fileclip.exe to this location should be enough.

> copy fileclip.exe %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps
    1 file(s) copied.

> where fileclip
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\fileclip.exe

The fileclip.exe should be placed within one directory of the %PATH% environment variable or the PATH variable needs to be extended with the directory where fileclip.exe resides.

Example configuration and compilation assuming g++ (MinGW-w64) is installed.

Generating the debug configuration:

..\fclip>cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -S . -B .\bin\debug\ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working C compiler: C:/mingw64/bin/gcc.exe - skipped
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: C:/mingw64/bin/g++.exe - skipped
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Configuring done
-- Generating done

Generating the release configuration:

..\fclip>cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -S . -B .\bin\release\ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
...
-- Configuring done
-- Generating done

After the successfull configuration the project may be compiled. If no changes to the CMake configuration files are made there's no need to (re-)run it again. Instead the project may be (re-)compiled any time.

Debug

..\fclip>cmake --build bin\debug
[ 33%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/fclip.dir/fclip.cpp.obj
[ 66%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/fclip.dir/pch.cpp.obj
[100%] Linking CXX executable fileclip.exe
[100%] Built target fileclip

Release

..\fclip>cmake --build bin\release
[ 33%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/fclip.dir/fclip.cpp.obj
[ 66%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/fclip.dir/pch.cpp.obj
[100%] Linking CXX executable fileclip.exe
[100%] Built target fileclip

• Inspired by stackoverflow question
• MinGW-w64
• CMake