Bash - change text copied to the clipboard using xclip

Question

I am trying to convert text copied to the clipboard from something like this:

+50.8863-114.0157/

to something like this:

geo:50.8927777778,-114.013055556,0

I found this code on the Web:

#!/bin/bash
x="geo:"$(xclip -o | tr -d ' ')
notify-send $x -i info
xclip -selection c

but it just removes the white space. What I need to do is: having +xx.xxxx-yy.yyyy/ in clipboard where x and y are numbers 0 - 9

• extract the text from the clipboard as an argument
• cut + from the beginning
• add geo: in the beginning
• add xx.xxxx after geo: (no spaces)
• add , after xx.xxxx (no spaces)
• add yy.yyyy after , (no spaces)
• cut / from the end
• add ,0 to the end (no spaces)
• return the result to the clipboard

---

ADDED LATER I figured that out myself. Here is the code that worked:

clipboard_original="$(xclip -o)"
latitude=${clipboard_original:0:8}
longitude=${clipboard_original:8:9}
clipboard_for_digikam_geo=""geo:""${latitude//+}"00000,"${longitude//+}"00000"
echo "$clipboard_for_digikam_geo" | xclip -selection c
exit

Answer 1

This oneliner is basically what you need:

xclip -o | sed -rne's/\+?(-?[[:digit:].]+)\+?(-?[[:digit:].]+)\//geo:\1,\2,0/p' | xclip -i

Explanation:

• xclip -o outputs the X selection to the standard output
• sed <regex> parses the format you gave (ignoring leading +'es) and prints the replacement text
  • -r switch instructs the sed to interpret regular expressions as Extended Regular Expressions (ERE) (quick intro here),
  • -n suppresses the output of (unmatched/unwanted) input -- so we have to explicitly print with the p command (the last letter in sed script)
  • -e script defines the sed script:
    • s/regexp/replacement/ will match regexp in each line of input (only the first occurrence) and replace it with replacement (which can include input groups, like \1). The p in the sed script actually prints the replacement text.
    • regexp (in short) is made up of two identical consecutive subpatterns: <optional +>(<optional -><one or more digits/dot>). Parentheses define a group which we use in the replacement.
• xclip -i sets X selection from stdin (sed's output)