Vimdiff and git all at once

Question

I use vimdiff as my difftool with git.

Let's say that I've changed twelve files. The problem is that sometimes I run git diff and around the fourth or fifth file I see something that I want to edit/change. Sometimes I need to make a few more changes outside of this. The problem is that I can't just :qa and go back to hacking, because there are six or seven more diffs that pop up in vimdiff. It gets really tedious to :qa all of these files without looking every time that I want to abort a git diff.

Is there any way to set up vimdiff as git's difftool such that all of the diffs open in the same vim instance, e.g. in separate tabs?

Answer 1

You could use the vim plugins published here. Then you just need to set the difftool:

[multidiff]
  tool = vd -f

As an alternative application I would suggest meld, which will show you modified files - you can then select just the files who's diffs you want to see.

See the screenshot here for an example.

Further to Marcos useful comment, as a third (manual alternative) if you want to use vimdiff I would recommend following meld's strategy in a script (possibly python):

• use git diff-files --name-status and git diff-index --name-status --cached HEAD to identify files that need to be examined.
• Get cached versions of these files and place in /tmp/
• Open all of these files - the changed files and their cached versions - at once in vimdiff - though most likely not possible in the sense that you require- see below.

However, as vimdiff itself doesn't seem to handle multiple diff tabs natively I recommend one of my other suggestions above.

Answer 2

A quite simple workaround is to add this option in your ~/.gitconfig file

[difftool]
    tool = vimdiff $LOCAL $REMOTE
    prompt = true

That way before each file comparison, you are prompted and have the possibility to skip a file by answering 'no' or abort the file comparison with Ctrl+C

Example:

$ git difftool
Viewing: 'file1.js'
Launch 'vimdiff' [Y/n]: y
2 files to edit

Viewing: 'file2.js'
Launch 'vimdiff' [Y/n]: n

Answer 3

This is what I use. It requires that you use vim-fugitive

[alias] dt = "!f() { vim -p $(git diff --name-only) +\"tabdo Gdiff $@\" +tabfirst; }; f"

git dt will then open each diff pair in a separate tab. Then :tabclose to close a single pair, or :qa to exit.

source

Answer 4

There's a much simpler solution that's not posted yet.

Add the following to your ~/.gitconfig -

[difftool]
    trustExitCode = true

Now you can run :cq at any time during the process to stop diffing more files.

Answer 5

I came up with the following script to achieve the behaviour git difftoll + vimdiff provides, but using tabs:

#!/bin/bash

commit1=$1
commit2=$2

files=`git diff ${commit1} ${commit2} --name-only`

cmd="set nosplitright | set nobackup | set noswapfile"

EXE="| silent exe"

for f in $files; do
    if [ -z "$commit2" ]; then
        cmd+="$EXE ':tabnew $f'"
    else
        cmd+="$EXE ':tabnew | f <${commit2}>/${f} | setlocal buftype=nofile | 0read ! git show ${commit2}:$f'"
    fi
    cmd+="$EXE ':0 | filetype detect'"
    cmd+="$EXE ':vnew | f <${commit1}>/${f} | setlocal buftype=nofile | 0read ! git show ${commit1}:$f'"
    cmd+="$EXE ':0 | filetype detect'"
    cmd+="$EXE ':windo diffth'"
done
cmd+="$EXE 'bd 1 | tabfirst'"

vim -c "$cmd"

Call it like this: vimgd <commit1> <commit2>