View different branch file inside VIM

Over the past few months, VIM has become my goto text editor at both the workplace and at home. I still use Visual Studio Code when I want to inspect the project from a bird's eye view. There will come a time when you will want to view the contents of the same file or a different file from another branch. This could be for comparing the changes or just for checking the contents of another file. Note that I am not an advanced Git user.

In VIM, there is a plugin named vim-fugitive for performing Git operations from within the editor. Refer to its docs for its usage and commands.

Commands

To inspect the contents of a file for a supplied path

:Gvsplit branch_name:path_of_file

To view the contents of the same file as the working file

:Gvsplit branch_name:%

To compare files

:Gvdiffsplit branch_name:%

Explanation

• :Gvsplit : Opens file in a vertical split window
• :Gvdiffsplit : Opens a file in a vertical split window and compares the file
• branch_name : Name of the branch
• % : This 'percentage' symbol holds the path of the file from the root of the project