How to prevent some new buffers from splitting the window?

Question

Is it possible to have new buffers created by a spesific command (vc-diff for example) use the same viewable area as the current buffer?

Currently it creates a split window, which I need to manually close after using the buffer and deleting it.

Answer 1

There is a global option to prevent splits from being opened:

(setq pop-up-windows nil)

When writing scripts you can locally assign this which won't apply outside the scope of the function, eg:

(defun vc-root-diff-fullscreen ()
  "Open a diff of the repository in the current frame."
  (interactive)
  (let ((pop-up-windows nil))
    (vc-root-diff nil)))