Question

Let’s say I have a file f.txt under the git repository. The initial version of this file contains one line, version 2 contains 2 lines and every new version adds one line to the previous version, so the version 10 contains 10 lines.

Now, I open the file f.txt (in 5th version) in the vim editor. I’d like to stay in the vim editor and have the possibility of commands like git_next and git_previous and quickly switch between versions, without having to know commit numbers and without leaving vim.

Is there such a possibility of using git and vim? It would be also useful if I could type command like git_versions and I could choose from the list of versions of this file and switch to the desired version.

Answer 1

You are looking for Fugitive.vim plugin by Tim Pope. It can aid you with many git commands.

With fugitive.vim you can execute :Glog and the revisions will be put into the quickfix list. Just use :cnext, :cprev, and friends to move between the revisions. There is an excellent screencast, Fugitive.vim – exploring the history of a git repository, on this by Drew Neil. I would highly recommend watching all the Vimcasts on the subject.

Drew in the screencast also shows off another Tim Pope plugin called Unimpaired.vim. I highly recommend it. It will provide some nice mappings ([q, ]q, etc.) to move through the quickfix list.

For more help see:

:h quickfix
:h :cnext

If you have Fugitive.vim installed see:

:h fugitive
:h fugitive-:Glog