How to open a split-diff for selected file out of the commit

Question

Using Vim-fugitive plugin I open a commit with

:Gedit HEAD~5

The buffer looks like this:

tree a75d4eea2207e408db6343a4869274b701b42135
parent 7fa89fec125ce60a341f7c37dd769a8a31c49359
author Takahiro Yoshihara <[email protected]> Tue Feb 21 09:07:51 2017 +0900
committer Takahiro Yoshihara <[email protected]> Sun Mar 19 18:16:51 2017 +0900

Fix incorrect matching in buffer mode with by_filename (#346)


diff --git a/autoload/ctrlp.vim b/autoload/ctrlp.vim
index 6558939..05196ae 100644
--- a/autoload/ctrlp.vim
+++ b/autoload/ctrlp.vim
@@ -2384,7 +2384,7 @@ endf
 fu! s:matchbuf(item, pat)
    let bufnr = s:bufnrfilpath(a:item)[0]
    let parts = s:bufparts(bufnr)
-   let item = bufnr.parts[0].parts[2].s:lash().parts[3]
+   let item = s:byfname ? parts[2] : bufnr.parts[0].parts[2].s:lash().parts[3]
    retu match(item, a:pat)
 endf

(the diff part appears folded)

Now putting the cursor on the first line of the diff, I would like to open that diff in a vertical split vim-diff mode like :Gvdiff (in a new tab or in the same tab below the current window) viewing the changes made to the file.

Currently issuing :Gvdiff compares the entire commit-buffer with something weird.

Basically I would like to have the same diff-view, as I get with dv in the :Gstatus window.

My questions are:

• How can I open the vertical split diff on a selected file?
• How can I close that view going back to my commit buffer?

Answer 1

From :h fugitive-mappings you can use:

• <cr> to open the diff in the current window
• o open the diff in a horizontal split
• O to open the diff in a new tab page
• S open diff in a vertical split

I imagine you want to use S on the diff line. However as screen space can be a concern with diff-ing, O might be a better option.

Answer 2

I love using vimdiff to compare commits side by side:

git difftool --tool=vimdiff commit_id_01 commit_id_02 path/to/file