Copying file itself into clipboard in Notepad++

[PeterJones]

@Ekopalypse ,

yes, adding in the extra NULLs seems to have solved it. I just tried a couple dozen times, and the copy-from-Notepad++/paste-in-Explorer worked every time now.

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@Alexander-Anisimov ,

I don’t know if you’ll be back again after I redirected you back to this conversation, but if you are, it’s not as hard as you seemed to conclude last Autumn.

The instructions would be:

1. Setup the PythonScript plugin as described in our FAQ
2. Use the updated script (derived from @Alan-Kilborn’s November 4th post, with the addressof fix mentioned, and replace the def main: ... section with the value from @Ekopalypse’s most reccent post). So that you don’t have to update the script yourself, the bottom of this post will contain the fully-updated script.
3. If you want, follow the instructions in the FAQ to give it a keyboard shortcut

From now on, running that script from the Plugin > PythonScript > Scripts menu (or your defined keyboard shortcut) will put the file into the clipboard in the right way so that you can move to Windows Explorer and paste the file to the new location.

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# encoding=utf-8
# https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/97676
import ctypes
from ctypes import wintypes
from Npp import notepad

CF_HDROP = 15
GHND = 66

OpenClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard
OpenClipboard.argtypes = [ wintypes.HWND ]
OpenClipboard.restype = wintypes.BOOL

EmptyClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.EmptyClipboard
EmptyClipboard.argtypes = []
EmptyClipboard.restype = wintypes.BOOL

SetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.SetClipboardData
SetClipboardData.argtypes = [ wintypes.UINT, wintypes.HANDLE ]
SetClipboardData.restype = wintypes.HANDLE

CloseClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard
CloseClipboard.argtypes = []
CloseClipboard.restype = wintypes.BOOL

GlobalLock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock
GlobalLock.argtypes = [ wintypes.HGLOBAL ]
GlobalLock.restype = wintypes.LPVOID

GlobalAlloc = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc
GlobalAlloc.argtypes = [wintypes.UINT, ctypes.c_size_t]
GlobalAlloc.restype = wintypes.HGLOBAL

GlobalUnlock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock
GlobalUnlock.argtypes = [ wintypes.HGLOBAL ]
GlobalUnlock.restype = wintypes.BOOL

memcpy = ctypes.cdll.msvcrt.memcpy
memcpy.argtypes = [ctypes.c_void_p, ctypes.c_void_p, ctypes.c_size_t]

addressof = ctypes.addressof

class POINT(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('x', wintypes.LONG),
        ('y', wintypes.LONG)
    ]

class DROPFILES(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('pFiles', wintypes.DWORD),
        ('pt', POINT),
        ('fNC', wintypes.BOOL),
        ('fWide', wintypes.BOOL),
    ]

def dump_mem(addr, size):
    mem = list((ctypes.c_ubyte * size).from_address(addr))
    print(mem)

def main():
    path = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(notepad.getCurrentFilename())
    path_size = ctypes.sizeof(path)
    df_size = ctypes.sizeof(DROPFILES)
    total_size = df_size + path_size + 2  # The data that follows the structure is a double null-terminated list of file names.

    df = DROPFILES()
    df.pFiles = df_size
    df.fWide = True

    h_global_mem = GlobalAlloc(GHND, total_size)  # allocate enough memory to hold the df struct and the full path
    if h_global_mem:
        lp_global_mem = GlobalLock(h_global_mem)  # lock and get the pointer to the memory
        memcpy(lp_global_mem, addressof(df), df_size)  # first copy the df struct
        memcpy(lp_global_mem+df_size, addressof(path), path_size)  # now copy the full path name
        dump_mem(lp_global_mem, total_size)
        GlobalUnlock(h_global_mem)
        res = OpenClipboard(notepad.hwnd)  # but 0 should be fine as well
        if res:
            if not EmptyClipboard():
                print('ERROR EmptyClipboard failed')
            if SetClipboardData(CF_HDROP, h_global_mem) is None:
                print('ERROR SetClipboardData failed')
            CloseClipboard()
        else:
            print('ERROR OpenClipboard', res)
    else:
        print('ERROR GlobalAlloc', h_global_mem)

main()

@Alexander-Anisimov , If you ever come back, I hope this helps. (Otherwise, I hope the fully-updated version helps some other user who wants this feature.)