Introduction

Your most important files are the ones that you’ve used most recently. So it makes sense that we would want to keep a list of such files.

With this goal in mind, I propose using the following script to wrap vim:

#!/bin/bash

##############################################
#  Wrapper for editor that logs filenames.   #
##############################################

/usr/bin/"$(basename "$0")" "$@"

for arg in "$@"; do
    # Don't log options, only files.
    if [[ -f "${arg}" ]]; then

        # Find absolute path to file.
        if [[ "${arg}" == "/"* ]]; then
            filepath="${arg}"
        else
            filepath="$PWD"/"${arg}"
        fi

        # Don't log temporary files.
        if [[ "${filepath}" != *"/tmp/"* ]]; then
            # Remove duplicate entries.
            sed -i "/${filepath//\//\\/}/d" "${RECENTLY_EDITED_FILES_LOG}"

            echo "${filepath}" >> "${RECENTLY_EDITED_FILES_LOG}"
        fi
    fi
done

To make this work you need to export RECENTLY_EDITED_FILES_LOG to some suitable log file path (in your bashrc/zshrc file), name the script above vim, make it executable, and then place it onto your system’s PATH. After these steps are complete, any files that you open in vim will be logged to this file.

What can you use this for?

There are two applications that I have thought of so far, though I’m sure there are many more.

Easy Shortcut for Opening Recently Used Files

I have the following one-liner in my zshrc config:

rim() { vim "$(awk -F'/' "/[^/]*$1[^/]*$/ {printf \"%s\n\", \$0}" "${RECENTLY_EDITED_FILES_LOG}" | tail -n 1)"; }

Now when I run rim <EXPR>, the most recently edited file whose filename matches <EXPR> will be opened up in vim.

Grep through Recently Used Files

I also use the following alias to search through the contents of each of these logged files with grep:

alias vgrep='cat $RECENTLY_EDITED_FILES_LOG | xargs grep'

Extra Credit

• Checkout the vim-startify plugin for a heavier (but more powerful) alternative to the script discussed above.

• The :oldfiles command in vim produces a list of recently edited files. For more information, run :h :oldfiles from within vim.