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Copy data to the clipboard

Source: R/copy_clipboard.R
copy_clipboard.Rd

copy_clipboard() copies a data frame, matrix, array (2D or higher), table or vector to the clipboard. You can paste the result into a text editor (e.g. Notepad++, Sublime Text), a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel, LibreOffice Calc), or a word processor (e.g. Word).

Usage

copy_clipboard(
  x,
  row.names.as.col = FALSE,
  row.names = TRUE,
  col.names = TRUE,
  message = TRUE,
  quiet = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

x

A data frame, matrix, 2D array, 3D array, table, or atomic vector to be copied.

row.names.as.col

Logical or character. If FALSE (default), row names are not added as a column. If TRUE, a column named "rownames" is prepended. If a character string is supplied, it is used as the column name for row names.

row.names

Logical. If TRUE (default), includes row names in the clipboard output. If FALSE, row names are omitted.

col.names

Logical. If TRUE (default), includes column names in the clipboard output. If FALSE, column names are omitted.

message

Logical. If TRUE (default), displays a success message after copying. If FALSE, no success message is printed.

quiet

Logical. If TRUE, suppresses all messages, including success, coercion notices, and warnings. If FALSE (default), messages are shown.

...

Additional arguments passed to clipr::write_clip().

Value

Invisibly returns the object x. The main purpose is the side effect of copying data to the clipboard.

Details

Note: Objects that are not data frames or 2D matrices (e.g. atomic vectors, arrays, tables) are automatically converted to character when copied to the clipboard, as required by clipr::write_clip(). The original object in R remains unchanged.

For multidimensional arrays (e.g. 3D arrays), the entire array is flattened into a 1D character vector, with each element on a new line. To preserve a tabular structure, you should extract a 2D slice before copying. For example: copy_clipboard(my_array[, , 1]).

Examples

# \donttest{
if (clipr::clipr_available()) {
  # Data frame
  copy_clipboard(mtcars)

  # Data frame with row names as column
  copy_clipboard(mtcars, row.names.as.col = "car")

  # Matrix
  mat <- matrix(1:6, nrow = 2)
  copy_clipboard(mat)

  # Table
  tbl <- table(iris$Species)
  copy_clipboard(tbl)

  # Array (3D) — flattened to character
  arr <- array(1:8, dim = c(2, 2, 2))
  copy_clipboard(arr)

  # Recommended: copy 2D slice for tabular layout
  copy_clipboard(arr[, , 1])

  # Numeric vector
  copy_clipboard(c(3.14, 2.71, 1.618))

  # Character vector
  copy_clipboard(c("apple", "banana", "cherry"))

  # Quiet mode (no messages shown)
  copy_clipboard(mtcars, quiet = TRUE)
}
# }