clipboard(x) blocks indefinitely (maybe just on Linux?)

[ghost]

julia> clipboard("Help, I'm trapped inside the computer!")
Waiting for selection requests, Control-C to quit
  Waiting for selection request number 1

Here Julia is waiting on xclip, which runs until another program intercedes to reset the clipboard. It would be more convenient -- for me, at least -- if xclip and xsel could detach themselves and run in the background. That way, we could carry on with our program in the meantime. It would only take an option change to fix:

--- base/interactiveutil.jl
+++ base/interactiveutil.jl
@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@
     end
     function clipboard(x)
         c = clipboardcmd()
-        cmd = c == :xsel  ? `xsel --nodetach --input --clipboard` :
-              c == :xclip ? `xclip -quiet -in -selection clipboard` :
+        cmd = c == :xsel  ? `xsel --input --clipboard` :
+              c == :xclip ? `xclip -silent -in -selection clipboard` :
             error("unexpected clipboard command: $c")
         open(pipeline(cmd, stderr=STDERR), "w") do io
             print(io, x)

(Compare–contrast the clipboard() method, where running in the foreground is natural; xsel and xclip return as soon as they've retrieved its contents.)

[Jollywatt]

This is still an issue for me today: clipboard(x) hangs because of the --nodetach option for xsel. If I remove the --nodetach option, this works. Should we remove --nodetach?

Julia Version 1.3.0
Commit 46ce4d7933 (2019-11-26 06:09 UTC)
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-6.0.1 (ORCJIT, skylake)
Environment:
  JULIA_EDITOR = subl

[vtjnash]

Yes, apparently someone made a PR to fix xclip, but nobody has yet made a PR to fix xsel.

[JeffBezanson]

fixed by #35180.