X Window Selection - Cut Buffers

Cut Buffers

Cut buffers are another mechanism to transfer data, in particular selected text. They are window properties of the root window, named CUT_BUFFER1, etc. Unlike selections, cut buffers do not involve a direct interaction between clients. Rather, when text is selected in a window, the window owner copies this text into the property of the root window called CUT_BUFFER1. When the user pastes the text in another window, the window owner reads this property of the root window.

The xcutsel program transfers data between selections and cut buffers, and the xcb program allows various kinds of access to the cut buffers.

Cut buffers are considered obsolete.

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Famous quotes containing the word cut:

    He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar’s pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)