How do I copy the contents of a String to the clipboard in C

Question

If I have some text in a String  how can I copy that to the clipboard so that the user can paste it into another window  for example  from my application to Notepad

User · Answer

Using the solution showed in this question, System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText(...), results in the exception:

Current thread must be set to single thread apartment (STA) mode before OLE calls can be made

To prevent this, you can add the attribute:

[STAThread]

to

static void Main(string[] args)

User · Answer

You can use System Windows Forms Clipboard SetText

User · Answer

WPF  System Windows Clipboard  PresentationCore dll   Winforms  System Windows Forms Clipboard  Both have a static SetText method

User · Answer

This works for me   You want to do   System Windows Forms Clipboard SetText  String to be copied to Clipboard      But it causes an error saying it must be in a single thread of ApartmentState STA   So let s make it run in such a thread  The code for it   public void somethingToRunInThread         System Windows Forms Clipboard SetText  String to be copied to Clipboard       protected void copy to clipboard         Thread clipboardThread   new Thread somethingToRunInThread       clipboardThread SetApartmentState ApartmentState STA       clipboardThread IsBackground   false      clipboardThread Start        After calling copy to clipboard    the string is copied into the clipboard  so you can Paste or Ctrl   V and get back the string as String to be copied to the clipboard

User · Answer

System Windows Forms Clipboard SetText  Windows Forms  or System Windows Clipboard SetText  WPF

User · Answer

Use try-catch  even if it has an error it will still copy   Try    Clipboard SetText  copy me to clipboard   Catch ex As Exception  End Try   If you use a message box to capture the exception  it will show you error  but the value is still copied to clipboard

User · Answer

In Windows Forms  if your string is in a textbox  you can easily use this   textBoxcsharp SelectAll    textBoxcsharp Copy    textBoxcsharp DeselectAll

User · Answer

I wish calling SetText were that easy but there are quite a few gotchas that you have to deal with  You have to make sure that the thread you are calling it on is running in the STA  It can sometimes fail with an access denied error then work seconds later without problem - something to do with the COM timing issues in the clipboard  And if your application is accessed over Remote Desktop access to the clipboard is sketchy  We use a centralized method to handle all theses scenarios instead of calling SetText directly    Stecy  Here s our centralized code   The StaHelper class simply executes some arbitrary code on a thread in the Single Thread Apartment  STA  - required by the clipboard   abstract class StaHelper       readonly ManualResetEvent  complete   new ManualResetEvent  false             public void Go                 var thread   new Thread  new ThreadStart  DoWork                           IsBackground   true                    thread SetApartmentState  ApartmentState STA            thread Start                  Thread entry method     private void DoWork                 try                        complete Reset                Work                      catch  Exception ex                         if  DontRetryWorkOnFailed                   throw              else                               try                                       Thread Sleep  1000                        Work                                      catch                                          ex from first exception                     LogAndShowMessage  ex                                                      finally                        complete Set                         public bool DontRetryWorkOnFailed  get  set            Implemented in base class to do actual work      protected abstract void Work        Then we have a specific class for setting text on the clipboard  Creating a DataObject manually is required in some edge cases on some versions of Windows  NET  I don t recall the exact scenarios now and it may not be required in  NET 3 5   class SetClipboardHelper   StaHelper       readonly string  format      readonly object  data       public SetClipboardHelper  string format  object data                  format   format           data   data             protected override void Work                 var obj   new System Windows Forms DataObject               format               data                     Clipboard SetDataObject  obj  true              Usage looks like this   new SetClipboardHelper  DataFormats Text   See  I m on the clipboard    Go

[c#] How do I copy the contents of a String to the clipboard in C#?

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