It'd be nice if it'd be possible to also view n-way diffs in external
viewers (here: in vimdiff). That's just what the attached patch does:
if set then the configured external viewer is also used for n-way diffs.

There's one aspect of this patch, that's a bit ugly: the patch is pretty
much an exact copy of the code of the "proc diff2" code part, that calls
the external viewer.

This results in the params given to the external viewer being a bit
"weird". Namely what the external viewer gets as parameters is:

    dir1 dir2 dir3 ... file_path

That means that the external viewer needs to check the number of
parameters and if there's more than two, then it needs to construct the
filepaths like this:

    dir1/file_path dir2/file_path dir3/file_path ...

I've implemented a wrapper for vimdiff that does that. It's using
`konsole` as a terminal, but that can be changed easily:

    $ cat ~/bin/dirdiff_vimdiff
    #!/bin/bash
    #
    if [ $# -gt 2 ]; then
            # dirdiff calls us with parameters:
            #
            #    dir1 dir2 dir3 ... file_name_to_diff

            # the file is the last parameter given
            file_to_diff="${@:$#:1}"

            # iterate over all parameters and construct
            # the full_path=dir+file_to_diff
            for i in $(seq 0 $(( $# - 1))); do
                    j=$(( $i + 1 ))
                    full_paths[$i]="${@:$j:1}/$file_to_diff"
            done

            # delete last element, since that's the file
            # itself:
            unset 'full_paths[-1]'

            konsole --workdir `pwd` -e vimdiff "${full_paths[@]}"
    else
            konsole --workdir `pwd` -e vimdiff "$1" "$2"
    fi

Alternatively the patch could be changed to do the path construction
inside dirdiff before calling the external program. I'll leave that
as a challenge ;-)

Thanks,
*t

Hi!

I decided to adopt this package that has been very useful to me in my packaging.

Taking advantage of it, I'm already applying the patch.

Thank you Tomas Pospisek for contributing to this tool.

Nilson F. Silva

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
dirdiff, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 910388@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Josenilson Ferreira da Silva <nilsonfsilva@hotmail.com> (supplier of updated dirdiff package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2022 21:03:17 -0300
Source: dirdiff
Architecture: source
Version: 2.1-9
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Josenilson Ferreira da Silva <nilsonfsilva@hotmail.com>
Changed-By: Josenilson Ferreira da Silva <nilsonfsilva@hotmail.com>
Closes: 910388 1008029
Changes:
 dirdiff (2.1-9) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * New Maintainer. (Closes: #1008029)
   * debian/control:
       - Updated Maintainer field with my name and email.
   * dedian/copyright:
       - Include name new maintainer Josensilson Ferreira da Silva.
   * debian/patches:
       - Created 011_dirdiff_vimdiff.patch.
         Makes it possible to see on-way diffs in external
         viewers(vimdiff). If set, the configured external
         viewer is also  used for n-way differences. Thanks
         Tomas Pospisek <tpo_deb@sourcepole.ch>. (Closes: #910388)
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