Parsing and visualizing diff output

[simoneruffini]

vim/neovim can be used as a diff viewer, but that configuration works per file and must be configured.
It would be awesome to simply pipe the output of a diff command to neovim and be able to show the direct result. My usecase is in diffing directories: where vimdiff would just return a per file diff a custon parser of the diff output will show a continous stream of text of the diffs. This feature is provided by tools like delta or meld. What do you think? In my opinion a feature like this should simplify the steps necessary to configure vim as a diff viewer because you could just type : readiff !diff -r dira dirb where readiff is the internal function to do the parsing

[lewis6991]

Sounds like a potential plugin, not a core feature.

[simoneruffini]

@lewis6991 What do you mean with reason? The reason is simple: provide functionality to the user in particular a use-case that in my opinion is frequently used i.e. developers frequently diff stuff. And my point is that the author of vim already thought diff was an important tool for file manipualtion: the functionality is already there! but it did not extend it to its full potential.

[lewis6991]

Adding every suggestion to "provide functionality to the user in particular a use-case" does not scale. This is exactly why we have a plugin eco-system and why one of the explicit goals of Neovim is extensibility.

[simoneruffini]

One of the best features of vim is that is full of small functionalities, ex. the convert diff to html. For you this is a totally does-not-scale feature that is still present in neovim. IMO you can't apply the does-not-scale as you do otherwise you provide nothing and leave everything to the user to implement.
EDIT:
moreover I'm not talking about adding an entirely new feature, but leveraging what already exists... diff files are not a particular use-case, diffing as it-is is a first class citizen of neovim/vim (used in git merges for example) so I don't understand why to use that feature you need to be in a particular context (for example git merges) and can't be used independently. Neovim/vim has the power to understand diffs!

[clason]

Proof of concept (as a plugin, unless you have a very clear and convincing explanation why it needs -- not "can", not "should", but needs -- to be implemented in C) will go a long way towards showing feasibility. Right now, you want something but want others to pay the cost for it. As none of the maintainers want this, this means it won't get done -- this is just how open source works. And no wall of text will change that.

[simoneruffini]

Ok, yes I'm ok with that!