How to kill ediff's buffers on quit?

Question

How to kill (C-x k) ediff's (A,B,C) buffers automatically on each ediff-quit?

Did you really mean close the buffers, as opposed to closing the *windows*, i.e. usually going back to a single window showing a single file (but leaving the files open)? — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Oct 12 '15 at 21:58
Why do you wish to do this? Often when I do an ediff I need to continue work on one of the buffers afterwards. — Andrew Swann, Oct 16 '15 at 07:09
In my case I'm using ztree-diff to view the diffs and I'm not interested in the files after the diff most of the time. — Alwyn Schoeman, Feb 26 '20 at 23:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 15 '15 at 20:40

(defun my-kill-ediff-buffers ()
  (kill-buffer ediff-buffer-A)
  (kill-buffer ediff-buffer-B)
  (kill-buffer ediff-buffer-C))

(add-hook 'ediff-quit-hook 'my-kill-ediff-buffers)

Note that this will always kill ediff-buffers, even if they weren't opened by ediff e.g. you called ediff-buffers with some buffers you had open to start with.

If you want to you could also kill *ediff-errors*, *ediff-diff*, *Ediff-Registry* and *ediff-fine-diff* as well, but those generally don't bother me.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '17 at 15:49

I'm adding an answer because this is the first link that popped up for me on this topic, and this is indeed way simpler.

You can pass a prefix to "q" and it will prompt to kill the ediff buffers.

C-u q

If you customize ediff-keep-variants it will reverse the behaviour: prompt to kill the buffers on exit and if use the prefix will leave them open.

(got this from the ediff manual)

quimm2003 · Answer 3 · 2018-06-29T10:36:15.123

I'm using this code (GNU Emacs 25.3.1 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), following https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/17089/18662

As stated in the GNU Emacs Manual regarding ediff-quit-hook (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ediff/Hooks.html):

Keep in mind that hooks executing before ediff-cleanup-mess start in ediff-control-buffer; they should also leave ediff-control-buffer as the current buffer when they finish. Hooks that are executed after ediff-cleanup-mess should expect the current buffer be either buffer A or buffer B.

So, I kill also the *Ediff Control Panel* buffer. Other ediff buffers may be added too.

(setq ediff-window-setup-function 'ediff-setup-windows-plain)
(setq ediff-split-window-function 'split-window-horizontally)

(defvar q-ediff-last-windows nil)

(defun q-store-pre-ediff-winconfig ()
    (setq q-ediff-last-windows (current-window-configuration)))

(defun q-restore-pre-ediff-winconfig ()
    (progn
       (set-window-configuration q-ediff-last-windows)
       (ediff-kill-buffer-carefully "*Ediff Control Panel*")))

(add-hook 'ediff-before-setup-hook #'q-store-pre-ediff-winconfig)
(add-hook 'ediff-quit-hook #'q-restore-pre-ediff-winconfig)

+10 for `(setq ediff-split-window-function 'split-window-horizontally)` alone! Was searching for a possibility to always split horizontally in `ztree-diff`. Thank you! — Ugur, Jan 16 '21 at 16:39

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 12 '15 at 19:31

0

You can try this hook:

 (add-hook 'ediff-load-hook
            (lambda ()
              (add-hook 'ediff-before-setup-hook
                        (lambda ()
                          (setq ediff-before-file (buffer-file-name))
                          (setq ediff-saved-window-configuration (current-window-configuration))))
              (let ((restore-window-configuration
                     (lambda ()
                       (set-window-configuration ediff-saved-window-configuration))))
                (add-hook 'ediff-quit-hook restore-window-configuration 'append)
                (add-hook 'ediff-suspend-hook restore-window-configuration 'append))))

edited Oct 12 '15 at 19:31

Kaushal Modi

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answered Oct 12 '15 at 14:21

djangoliv

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It is not recommended to bind `lambda` functions to hooks (and advices). It makes reviewing the hook variables and removing functions from hooks painful. – Kaushal Modi Oct 12 '15 at 21:00
2

This effectively closes the windows, but the question is asking to kill the **buffers**. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 13 '15 at 12:15

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 13 '15 at 12:15

0

This is what I am using to close the windows:

(add-hook 'ediff-after-quit-hook-internal 'winner-undo)

edited Oct 13 '15 at 12:15

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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answered Oct 12 '15 at 19:32

clemera

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This effectively closes the windows, but the question is asking to kill the **buffers**. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 13 '15 at 12:15

How to kill ediff's buffers on quit?

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