difftool, open all diff files immediately, not in serial

The default git diff behavior is to open each diff file in serial (wait for previous file to be closed before opening next file).

I'm looking for a way to open all the files at once - in BeyondCompare for example this would open all the files in tabs within the same BC window.

This would make it easier to review a complex set of changes; flick back and forwards between the diff files and ignore unimportant files.

Here's my same question on StackOverflow with a couple of ideas I have found (copy files to temp dir and do folder diff, Araxis has 'nowait' option): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1220309

--Seba

Seba Illingworth wrote:

I posted the script below on IRC the other week[1] in reply to someone looking for a way to do this for 'meld'. I'm not sure this is the *fastest* way to do this, but I'm at least trying to take a few shortcuts ;-)

Since this is now the second request for such a tool, it would be nice if you could at least shape this as a contrib/ patch (if it fits your needs, of course).

[1] http://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/git?date=2009-07-14#l2180

-- 8< -- #!/bin/sh

. "$(git --exec-path)/git-sh-setup" cd_to_toplevel # for the tar below

pre="${1-HEAD}" post="$2"

tmp="$(mktemp -d)"

cleanup () {
	rm -rf $tmp
}

trap cleanup EXIT

mkdir "$tmp"/a "$tmp"/b

if [ -n "$post" ]; then
	git diff --name-only "$pre" "$post" > "$tmp"/filelist
	while read name; do
		mkdir -p "$tmp"/b/"$(dirname "$name")"
		git show "$post":"$name" > "$tmp"/b/"$name"
	done < "$tmp"/filelist
else
	git diff --name-only "$pre" > "$tmp"/filelist
	tar -c -T "$tmp"/filelist | (cd "$tmp"/b && tar -x)
fi

while read name; do
	mkdir -p "$tmp"/a/"$(dirname "$name")"
	git show "$pre":"$name" > "$tmp"/a/"$name"
done < "$tmp"/filelist

cd "$tmp" #meld a b diff -ur a b

Thomas Rast <trast <at> student.ethz.ch> writes:

...

Thanks Thomas, I'll take a few days to digest/test this (I'm new to bash and git) and give feedback.

Seba Illingworth <seba.illingworth <at> gmail.com> writes:

Just realised I never posted my solution. This works great for me, I wouldn't do without it: http://blog.codefarm.co.nz/2009/08/git-diff-and-difftool-open-all-files.html

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 02:16:07AM +0000, Seb wrote:

Thanks.  We should add git difftool --all, what do you think?

Do you have any thoughts about difftool's defaults? I've always kind of felt that --no-prompt was a possible candidate...

Thomas Rast <trast <at> student.ethz.ch> writes:

I've come up with a simple script that diffs the files in a background task:

  for name in $(git diff --name-only $1); do git difftool $1 $name & done

Then aliased the script for usage:

  git diffall [--staged]

Being a bash newbie, I'd appreciate any feedback on what seems to be a simple solution...??