pbcopy ftw

pbcopy is a great tool on Apple systems that accepts standard input and puts on on the clipboard, so it can be pasted into another program.

For example,

echo "put me on the clipboard" | pbcopy

Now the echo‘ed text will be on the clipboard.

Here’s a bash function for generating a new password and having it wind up on the clipboard:

function hexPassword() {
  if [[ ! $1 =~ [0-9]+ ]];
    then
      echo -e "must enter a password length as argument\nsample usage: hexPassword 8"
    else
      echo -e "fun fact: each hexadecimal digit represents four binary digits\n"
      password=$(openssl rand -hex $1)
      echo $password | pbcopy
      echo "generated password $password is now on the clipboard"
  fi
}

This can be done on Linux with a similar tool such as xclip.