vimdiff between current and previous git version of a file

git vim vimdiff
Sonia Hamilton picture Sonia Hamilton · Feb 28, 2013 · Viewed 7.7k times · Source

Is there a way of using vimdiff to compare the current version of a file and the same file n git versions ago?

For example, I'm working on the file foo.c on the branch master. I'd like to do a vimdiff between foo.c and foo.c from master~10, to copy one or two lines across from the old version.

PS I'm aware of git cherry pick, but that's for whole files, not just a couple of lines.

Answer

Sonia Hamilton picture Sonia Hamilton · Feb 28, 2013

Duh! RTFM. I was adding a PPS about this not being a use case for git difftool, then started wondering "what exactly does git difftool do...".

Solution is:

git difftool master master~10 -- foo.c

That is, presuming difftool is already set up correctly in ~/.gitconfig:

[diff]
  tool = vimdiff
[difftool]
  prompt = false

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