Last month I wrote about how I rewrote z from scratch after I started using fzf.

10 days later I posted the following toot on Mastodon:

There’s a problem with my implementation: ‘recent’ paths only get priority after they’ve been accessed enough times.

There’s an elegant solution for this, let’s see if you can find it!

Well, now it’s time to dig into the answer to this question.

Order, please! #

In the previous version, paths were stored in a json file used as a database. The database would track the number of times each path was visited, so that most used paths would get displayed first.

After using this implementation for a while, I found I had the following workflow when I started working on something new in a new directory, but which name already partially matched previous entries.

• Go to a new folder cd ~/work/stuff
• Open vim
• Need to run a command while keeping the editor open
• Open a new terminal ¹
• Run z stuff and scroll because there’s already paths matching ‘stuff’ in the cwd-history database.

This was really annoying, so I decided to try something new.

Here’s the relevant part of the new version of the code:

def add_to_db(path):
    paths = read_db()
    if path in paths:
        paths.remove(path)
    paths.append(path)
    write_db(paths)

Basically we make sure that latest paths are always appended at the bottom of the list, while making sure there are no duplicates.

Thus, the last part of the workflow is now:

• Type z without argument
• Type enter to select the element at the bottom (fzf starts with the cursor at the bottom of the list by default)
• Type enter to enter the lastly visited directory

I can tell you the z-enter-enter sequence took no time to become part of my muscle memory, which is a great sign that I found something that works well :)

I also really like that the implementation is simpler and easier to explain, so it might be a good idea ².

That’s all for today, see you next time.