Feature request: Watch for regex match and run shell command when match found

[devtweakr]

So, when there is a regex match of copied text it would automatically run a shell command.

Example: Whenever an URL is copied and "http.*" is found it would automatically run my script to open url in firefox

#!/bin/bash url=$(xclip -selection clipboard -o) firefox $url

Is it possible to add such feature?
I haven't yet seen any of clipboard extensions with such functionality.

[joelpurra]

@devtweakr: how about just using another command line utility instead of relying a full-featured Gnome Shell Extension with all (GUI) dependencies that implies?

A quick search yielded clipnotify which might work like this:

url_matcher='^http'

while clipnotify -s clipboard;
do
	clipboard_selection="$(xclip -selection clipboard -out)"
	if [[ $clipboard_selection =~ $url_matcher ]];
	then
		firefox "$clipboard_selection"
	fi
done

That bash snippet was written on the fly and is completely untested, so take it with a grain of salt.

[devtweakr]

yep, did just that
little check to skip last url

#!/bin/bash

last_url=""
while true; do
    clipboard=$(xclip -selection clipboard -o)
    regex_pattern="^https?"
    if [[ $clipboard =~ $regex_pattern && "$clipboard" != "$last_url" ]]; then
        last_url=$clipboard
        firefox "$clipboard" &
    fi
    sleep 1
done

[b00f]

it would automatically run my script to open url in firefox

This can raise security concerns.
This extension is designed to be simple and perform just one task: managing the clipboard.