getting output from command in a vim buffer

Question

what i want to do

1. editing one file
2. run '!svn diff %' (or any other command that takes the current file name)
3. put the output on a new buffer (or tab)

bonus: not using a script, as i work often on hosts i do not manage to my liking.

My first try was: :tabnew | r !svn diff % which obvious does not work because % will be empty as it is parsed after the tabnew command.

Answer 1

This should work:

:tabnew | r !svn diff #

# references the previous buffer, i.e. the buffer you had open before the :tabnew was executed.

Even better is

:tabnew | set buftype=nowrite | r !svn diff #

because then vim won't complain when you close the tab, but this is already too much to type everytime.