IPC through windows clipboard using c++

Question

This is how you can get last text item from clipboard:

OpenClipboard(nullptr);

    HANDLE hData = GetClipboardData(CF_TEXT);

    char* pszText = static_cast<char*>(GlobalLock(hData));

    std::string text;
    if (pszText != nullptr)
    {
        text.assign(pszText);
    }

    GlobalUnlock(hData);

    CloseClipboard();

    std::cout << text;

This is how you can set an text item from clipboard:

std::string source("text");
    if (OpenClipboard(nullptr))
    {
        HGLOBAL clipbuffer;
        char* buffer;
        EmptyClipboard();
        clipbuffer = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_DDESHARE, source.length() + 1);
        buffer = (char*)GlobalLock(clipbuffer);
        strcpy(buffer, source.c_str());
        GlobalUnlock(clipbuffer);
        SetClipboardData(CF_TEXT, clipbuffer);
        CloseClipboard();
    }

But I don't know how to delete last text item from clipboard, I would like to be able to not let the user see that I am using the clipboard or change his clipboard so he cant paste last thing he copied...

How can I do this, delete an text item from windows clipboard using c++?

Answer 1

This is the strangest way to pass text from one app to another. Sending e-mail also comes to mind.

There is a Windows-native way to do that: send a WM_COPYDATA message. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dataxchg/wm-copydata for details.