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send netcat output to cursor position – Debian

I have a device connected to the local network that sends a string to a specific port of a PC (connected to the same network) running Debian. On this PC I need to put that string to cursor position (for example, in an opened text editor).

I’m able to read the string from terminal with this command

nc -l -p 8888

but I can’t figure out a way to put that string to cursor position.

After testing I would like this to become a service that remains active in the background

Thanks to anyone who has suggestions.

EDIT:

As suggested by JoseLinares i tried to copy the netcat output to the clipboard with the command

nc -l -p 8888 | xclip

Then i tried to paste it to a text editor, but nothing happen.
Using echo command (echo "something" | xclip) it works.

Another strange thing, if send output to a file (nc -l -p 8888 > test) and open that file with "nano" editor i see the value, but if i try to open it with "cat", it is empty.

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2

Answers


  1. 0

    You can use xclip to save the output of nc in the clipboard:

    nc -l -p 8888 | xclip

    Then use xdotool to simulate a click in the middle button of the mouse. This will lead to copy the clipboard content in the cursor position in most desktop managers:

    xdotool click 2

    2 is the id of the middle button

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  2. 0

    The tcut cup command, provided by ncurses allows you to move the terminal cursor to any position on the screen (0,0 being top-left).

    You can use it this way for example:

    nc -k -l 8888 
| while read -r line; do
    tput cup 5 5
    printf '%s        ' "$line"
done

    Here everything received by nc on port 8888 is written to the terminal at the position (5,5).

    Note 1: There are several versions of netcat (nc). Yours may not have the -k switch (= don’t die after the first connection has ended).

    Note 2: You are mentioning a service. Services are generally not bound to a terminal, but you may open one (man openvt) or redirect the command above to an existing one (e.g. > /dev/tty1)

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