Re: vimdiff noob question

On 08/06/14 07:18, wolfv wrote:
> On Saturday, June 7, 2014 7:32:14 PM UTC-6, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
>> On 07/06/14 21:11, wolfv wrote:
>>
>>> I am following the example in the vim user manual: 08.7 Viewing differences with vimdiff
>>
>>> My vimdiff is either broken or I am not understanding something.
>>
>>>
>>
>>> In this example, a.txt has serveral lines of text.
>>
>>> I open vimdiff from the command prompt:
>>
>>> vim -d a.txt~ a.txt
>>
>>> ~
>>
>>> ~
>>
>>> ~
>>
>>> ~
>>
>>> vimdiff displays both files as having no lines, and there are no folds.
>>
>>> Is this how vimdiff is supposed to work? I was expecting to see some text.
>>
>>> If I save the file (:w) at this point, the file is overwritten with an empty file.
>>
>>> Otherwise vimdiff seems to work normally; I am able to insert text into a.txt and save it.
>>
>>>
>>
>>> This is my first attempt learning vimdiff and I appreciate your advice.
>>
>>> Thank you.
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> In order for vimdiff to work, you need to have where Vim can find it
>>
>> (usually in your $PATH, or maybe in $VIMRUNTIME) a diff program which
>>
>> understands the arguments that vimdiff will send it to find the
>>
>> differences between the files. This is usually the case if you run on a
>>
>> Unix-like OS, including Linux, Mac OSX, BeOS, etc. On Windows it may or
>>
>> may not be the case.
>>
>>
>>
>> See in particular ":help diff-diffexpr" and the last paragraph before
>>
>> ":help diff-patchexpr" (without the double quotes in both cases).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Tony.
>>
>> --
>>
>> meeting, n.:
>>
>> An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
>>
>> department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
>
> Thanks Tony. My path environment checks out.
>
> The vim install has C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vim74\diff.exe
> and PATH environment has variable:
> ;C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vim74\
>
> I am running vim 7.4 on Windows 7.
> What else can I trouble shoot?
>

I'm not sure. Some programs (including Vim) sometimes have difficulties
with paths containing spaces. Could you find out the 8.3 form of that
"Program Files (x86)" directory name? It ought to be something like
PROGRA~1 or PROGRA~2. Then you could replace the long name by the 8.3
name in the $PATH environment variable. There should be no ill effects:
at worst, nothing will change; at best, the problem will disappear.

You can get that 8.3 name in Vim by typing
:echo fnamemodify('C:\Program Files (x86)', ':8')

see
:help fnamemodify()
:help filename-modifiers


Best regards,
Tony.
--
Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory.

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