[MSH] Clipboard Snapin... Thanks to both /\/\o\/\/ and Keith Hill, I was able to somewhat improve the Clipboard snapin by adding "Get-Clipboard" cmdlet.

I was able to fix "Out-Clipboard" cmdlet to receive an input from pipe by setting type of "inputData" to that of "string" from "object"(thanks /\/\o\/\/).

Well, I just couldn't improve much from Keith's orignal Clipboard Cmdlet other than the fact that this is now a Snapin and fixed one small bug(refer to OutClipboardCommand.SetObject)...

Anyways, here is how this Clipboard Snapin can be used

Here is a simple one.

MSH> "Hello, World!" | Out-Clipboard
MSH> Get-Clipboard
Hello, World!
MSH>

Now let's try to send the output of "get-process" to the clipboard

MSH> get-process | Out-Clipboard
MSH> Get-Clipboard
System.Diagnostics.Process (ahnsd)
System.Diagnostics.Process (ahnsdsv)
...
System.Diagnostics.Process (winlogon)
System.Diagnostics.Process (wmiprvse)
MSH>

Now, what is going on here? Well, I don't want to go too deep with that because it was explained in Keith's blog on MSH: Get-Clipboard and Set-Clipboard Cmdlets already.

Anyways, the problem is that, "out-clipboard" is receiving unformatted input string so MSH user have to explicitly have to convert piped data to string (through "out-string") before sending the data to Out-Clipboard(well, that is why the cmdlet only supports data of type string, for now)

So, i was searching and reading documents on MSDN and was looking for ways to put that "out-string" behavior inside "out-clipboard". Well, I haven't found the answer yet... It seems like there is not "a recommanded way invoking a cmdlet that is a subclass of MshCmdlet from another cmdlet" according to Kevin Loo who also suggested me to create a new function defined like the following

function set-clipboard {$input | out-string | out-clipboard}

Using "set-clipboard", try to run "get-process | set-clipboard", "get-childitem | set-clipboard", etc... But the problem with "set-clipboard" approach is that, you can't explicitly pass the object to "set-clipboard"... while something like "out-clipboard $(dir)" would work(although not how you might expect it to work).
I guess a workaround for that problem might be my next topic...



For instructions on how to compile and install the snapin, please refer to Appendix D in "Getting Started" document for MSH.

Here is how to load Clipboard Snapin

MSH> set-alias installutil $env:windir\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\installutil
MSH> cd [go to Snapin assembly directory]
MSH> installutil Snapins.dll
MSH> get-mshsnapin -r
Name : ClipboardSnapin
MshVersion : 1.0
Description : Provides retrieving/sending data from/to Clipboard
MSH> add-mshsnapin ClipboardSnapin

Now, ClipboardSnapin is loaded and you are good to go.

Well, the source's below... but I was deliberately trying to make each line shortern than 80 columns... so it looks longer than it should be...

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Management.Automation;

namespace D2D.Snapins
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Define basic information of this snap in
    /// </summary>
    [RunInstaller(true)]
    public class ClipboardSnapin : MshSnapIn
    {
        public ClipboardSnapin() : base()
        {
        }

        public override string Name
        {
            get { return "ClipboardSnapin"; }
        }

        public override string Vendor
        {
            get { return "DontBotherMeWithSpam"; }
        }

        public override string Description
        {
            get { return "Provides retrieving/sending data from/to Clipboard"; }
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Cmdlet to return clipboard text to pipe
    /// </summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// Original Author: Keith Hill (http://spaces.msn.com/keithhill)
    /// Original Source URL: http://home.comcast.net/~rkeithhill/MSH/Clipboard.cs
    /// Modified by: DBMwS
    /// Date: 01/31/2006 @ 12:59AM
    /// 
    /// Removed, "timeout" feature
    /// </remarks>
    [Cmdlet("Get", "Clipboard")]
    public class GetClipboardCommand : Cmdlet
    {
        private Exception ex;
        private string dataObject = "";

        protected override void BeginProcessing()
        {
            Thread t = new Thread(new ThreadStart(GetObject));

            try
            {
                t.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
                t.Start();
                t.Join();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                ErrorRecord err = new ErrorRecord(ex, "GetClipboardError",
                    ErrorCategory.NotSpecified, t);
                WriteError(err);
            }

            if (this.ex != null)
            {
                WriteError(new ErrorRecord(this.ex, 
                    "GetClipboard::GetObjectError", 
                    ErrorCategory.NotSpecified, null));
            }

            WriteVerbose(string.Format("Sending '{0}' to pipe", 
                this.dataObject.ToString()));
            WriteObject(this.dataObject, 
                (this.dataObject.GetType().IsArray));
        }

        private void GetObject()
        {
            try
            {
                this.dataObject = Clipboard.GetText();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                this.ex = ex;
            }
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// send output string to clipboard
    /// </summary>
    [Cmdlet("Out", "Clipboard")]
    public class OutClipboardCommand : Cmdlet
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Unhandled exception
        /// </summary>
        private Exception ex;
        /// <summary>
        /// Actuall worker thread
        /// </summary>
        private Thread t;
        /// <summary>
        /// Holds all the necessary input data to send to Clipboard
        /// </summary>
        private StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        /// <summary>
        /// Input data received either from pipe or as an argument
        /// </summary>
        private string []inputData;
        /// <summary>
        /// Input data to send to clipboard
        /// </summary>
        [Parameter(Mandatory = true, Position = 0, ValueFromPipeline = true)]
        public string []InputData
        {
            get { return inputData; }
            set { inputData = value; }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Create a STA thread to start later on.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void BeginProcessing()
        {
            WriteVerbose("Begin Processing(Creating a new STA thread)...");

            t = new Thread(new ThreadStart(SetObject));
            t.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Append all input lines into one
        /// (with a newline appended for each input data)
        /// </summary>
        protected override void ProcessRecord()
        {
            WriteVerbose("Processing Record...");

            try
            {
                if (this.InputData != null)
                {
                    WriteVerbose(
                        string.Format("\tAppending {0}", this.InputData));
                    foreach (string line in this.InputData)
                    {
                        this.sb.AppendLine(line);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // Well I don't know what happened, 
                // so send the error to the host...
                ErrorRecord err = new ErrorRecord(ex, "OutClipboardError", 
                    ErrorCategory.NotSpecified, t);
                WriteError(err);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Start a thread to send input data to Clipboard
        /// </summary>
        protected override void EndProcessing()
        {
            try
            {
                t.Start();
                t.Join();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                ErrorRecord err = new ErrorRecord(ex, "OutClipboardError", 
                    ErrorCategory.NotSpecified, t);
                WriteError(err);
            }

            // Handle error occurred while sending text to clipboard
            // Well, try out something as stupid as "clear-host | out-clipboard"...
            if (this.ex != null)
            {
                WriteError(new ErrorRecord(this.ex, 
                    "OutClipboard::SetObjectError", 
                    ErrorCategory.NotSpecified, null));
            }
            WriteVerbose("End Processing...");
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Send input data to clipboard
        /// </summary>
        private void SetObject()
        {
            try
            {
                // Before sending the inputData to clipboard, 
                // we need to drop the last newline character
                string text = this.sb.ToString();
                text = text.Substring(0, 
                    (text.Length - System.Environment.NewLine.Length));

                Clipboard.SetText(text);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                this.ex = ex;
            }
        }

    }
}

Tags : Monad msh

  ¶ 12:44 AM