How to view svn diff in vimdiff style in svn

Question

I am starting to use Subversion on Linux. svn diff gives a very cryptic view—very, very unfriendly to eyes. How do I interpret its output? And more importantly, is there a way to view the difference in vimdiff kind of neat style, where both files will open side by side?

Answer 1

Edit the file $HOME/.subversion/config so it contains the line:

diff-cmd = <your favorite diff application>

Some diff apps support svn. For example, diff-cmd = meld should work fine. However, vimdiff is not one of them. The reason for that is that svn diff gives the files to be compared as 6th and 7th arguments, and not as 1st and 2nd as usual. So what most people do in this situation is this:

Create a wrapper script:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/vimdiff ${6} ${7}

Save it, for example, at $HOME/bin/svndiffwrap.sh

Do not forget to make it executable chmod +x $HOME/bin/svndiffwrap.sh.

Make it the svn diff command:

in $HOME/.subversion/config:

diff-cmd = /home/<username>/bin/svndiffwrap.sh

Note: Some svn clients do not support paths that uses $HOME environment variable. So it is useful to specify full path.

Answer 2

Found it at: http://blog.tplus1.com/index.php/2007/08/29/how-to-use-vimdiff-as-the-subversion-diff-tool/

This blog post takes the script directly from the SVN book external diff tools example:

diffwrap.sh

#!/bin/sh

# Configure your favorite diff program here.
DIFF="/usr/local/bin/vimdiff"

# Subversion provides the paths we need as the sixth and seventh 
# parameters.
LEFT=${6}
RIGHT=${7}

# Call the diff command (change the following line to make sense for
# your merge program).
$DIFF $LEFT $RIGHT

# Return an errorcode of 0 if no differences were detected, 1 if some were.
# Any other errorcode will be treated as fatal.

Note: This assumes that your vimdiff is in /usr/local/bin, for me, in Fedora, it was in /usr/bin. If you can't find it run:

$ whereis vimdiff

Then in ~/.subversion/config:

[helpers]
...
diff-cmd = /home/<username>/bin/diffwrap.sh

Answer 3

vimdiff <(svn diff)

<() is referred to as process substitution which creates a pseudo file from the output of svn diff for vimdiff to consume.

You can create a shell alias like so: alias svndiff='vimdiff <(svn diff)'

Similar answer

PS - this is the simplest solution I have yet to find; it changed my life (relatively speaking)!

Answer 4

I like having the revision and file in the statusline when using vimdiff with svn so I use the following:

svnvimdiff.sh

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/vim -R -d -f --nofork -n -c "let F1='${5//$'\t'/ }' | set statusline=%{F1} | let F2='${3//$'\t'/ }' | setlocal statusline=%{F2}" ${6} ${7}

explanation:

• -R = readonly (we can not edit those files)
• -d = diff mode (side by side)
• -f = foreground (let svn wait)
• --nofork = also foreground (let svn wait)
• -n = skip swapfiles (we do not need the swapfiles since they are already temporary)
• -c = execute vim command
• let F1='${5//$'\t'/ }' (name for all windows with tab replaced because it does not display correctly)
• set statusline=%{F1} (set name as global statusline)
• let F2='${3//$'\t'/ }' (name for first window with tab replaced because it does not display correctly)
• setlocal statusline=%{F2} (set statusline for first window)

Add/change diff-cmd in $HOME/.subversion/config

diff-cmd = /yourpath/svnvimdiff.sh

Or use it inline:

svn diff --diff-cmd /yourpath/svnvimdiff <file>

Answer 5

VCSCommand can do it for you - install the plugin, navigate to the file, and press <Leader>cv

Answer 6

Follow these step

1. Install colordiff eg: for Ubuntu sudo apt-get install colordiff

2. Now you can just try svn diff output to colordiff: svn diff -r Rev1:Rev2 file | colordiff

3. Add following code into your bash profile (~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile) to easily access.

   svndiff() { svn diff "${@}" | colordiff }

4. source bash profile.

   source ~/.basrc Now it's ready use... You can just see the svn diff in your terminal most effectively.

   eg: svndiff

Answer 7

Expanding on the answer from xyz above, the following two scripts work perfectly for me:

File /usr/bin/svndiff:

#!/bin/bash
svn diff $@ --diff-cmd=/usr/bin/svndiffwrap.sh

File /usr/bin/svndiffwrap.sh:

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/vimdiff ${6} ${7}

Then anything you can do on the command line like:

svn diff -r 124028:125747 ./file1

you can just remove the space and it works as expected:

svndiff -r 124028:125747 ./file1

It even works on entire trees and opens each file in sequence.

svndiff -r 124028:125747 ./directory/

Answer 8

I use tkdiff and tkcvs for svn. Nice side by side view.

Answer 9

The base of each file is stored in .svn folder so you can write small script to launch vimdiff or mgdiff to give a path in .svn folder against which to compare your file. This won't require you to make vimdiff default diff command for svn.