Fixes bug where hints starting with the first alphabet's character are _almost never_ generated.

* Switches to "positional notation" to fix the bug.
* Consolidates `encode_hint` and `generate_prefix_free_hint` into `encode_hint`.
* Moves prefix_free_hints.go to hints_generator.go; `encode_hint` and `decode_hint` were moved here too.
* The "prefix-free" logic was made 0-index based instead of 1-index based for two reasons:
  1. To simplify 1-off discrepancies.
  2. To keep backwards compatibility with the old usage of `encode_hint`.
* Slight perfomance improvement added by reusing the runt-to-index map instead of rebuilding for each call to `decode_hint`.
* Unit tests added; for all new logic and old affected logic.

Fixes #10231

kittens/hints/hints_generator.go

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+// License: GPLv3 Copyright: 2026, Kovid Goyal, <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+package hints
+
+// hints_to_skip calculates how many hints to skip based on the given n and
+// alphabet size so that the next n hints generated by expanding the prefix tree
+// of an alphabet of size alphabetSize will be prefix-free.
+//
+// The result is 1-based, meaning that the first hint to be skipped is the first
+// non-empty hint.
+//
+// For example, if alphabet was "abc" and n was 5, the first non-empty hints
+// from that alphabet would be: "a", "b", "c", "aa", "ab", "ac", ...
+// the result of hints_to_skip would be 1, and this would mean that if you skip
+// "a" from the list above, the next 5 hints are prefix-free:
+// "b", "c", "aa", "ab", "ac".
+//
+// See issue #10195 for an informal proof on why this function works.
+func hints_to_skip(n int, alphabetSize int) int {
+	if n < 2 {
+		n = 2
+	}
+	return (n - 2) / (alphabetSize - 1)
+}
+
+// encode_hint generates the hint corresponding to the given index in the
+// breadth-first traversal of the prefix tree generated by the given alphabet.
+//
+// For example, given the alphabet "abc", the hints would be generated in
+// the following order:
+// 0. "a"
+// 1. "b"
+// 2. "c"
+// 3. "aa"
+// 4. "ab"
+// 5. "ac"
+// 6. "ba"
+// 7. "bb"
+// 8. "bc"
+// 9. "ca"
+// 10. "cb"
+// 11. "cc"
+// 12. "aaa"
+// ...
+//
+// Indices are 0-based on non-empty hints; index=0 the hint of length 1 with
+// the first character of the alphabet.
+func encode_hint(num int, alphabet string) (res string) {
+	l := len(alphabet)
+
+	for num >= 0 {
+		mod := num % l
+		res = string(alphabet[mod]) + res
+		num /= l
+		num -= 1
+	}
+
+	return
+}
+
+func rune_to_index_map(alphabet string) *map[rune]int {
+	runeToIndexMap := make(map[rune]int)
+	for index, char := range alphabet {
+		runeToIndexMap[char] = index
+	}
+	return &runeToIndexMap
+}
+
+// decode_hint converts a hint to its corresponding index as it would appear in
+// the breadth-first traversal of the prefix tree generated by the given
+// alphabet.
+//
+// For example, given the alphabet "abc", the hints would be generated in
+// the following order:
+// 0. "a"
+// 1. "b"
+// 2. "c"
+// 3. "aa"
+// 4. "ab"
+// ...
+//
+// hint is expected to be non-empty.
+func decode_hint(hint string, char_to_index *map[rune]int) (res int) {
+	base := len(*char_to_index)
+
+	for _, c := range hint {
+		res = res*base + ((*char_to_index)[c] + 1)
+	}
+	return res - 1
+}

kittens/hints/hints_generator_test.go

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ func TestPrefixFreeHints(t *testing.T) {
 			skip := hints_to_skip(total_hints, l)
 			hints := make([]string, total_hints)
 			for i := range total_hints {
-				hints[i] = generate_prefix_free_hint(skip+1+i, alph)
+				hints[i] = encode_hint(skip+1+i, alph)
 			}
 			// Verify that no hint is a prefix of another hint
 			for i := range total_hints {
@@ -82,9 +82,9 @@ func TestPrefixFreeHints(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 	expectedCodes1 := []string{"ab", "aa", "c", "b"}
 	for i, m := range marks1 {
-		hint := generate_prefix_free_hint(m.Index, opts1.Alphabet)
+		hint := encode_hint(m.Index, opts1.Alphabet)
 		if hint != expectedCodes1[i] {
-			t.Errorf("Case 1 - Match %d: got hint %q, expected %q", i, hint, expectedCodes1[i])
+			t.Errorf("Case 1 - Match %d (Index %d): got hint %q, expected %q", i, m.Index, hint, expectedCodes1[i])
 		}
 	}
 
@@ -115,9 +115,43 @@ func TestPrefixFreeHints(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 	expectedCodes2 := []string{"aa", "ab", "ac", "ba"}
 	for i, m := range marks2 {
-		hint := generate_prefix_free_hint(m.Index, opts2.Alphabet)
+		hint := encode_hint(m.Index, opts2.Alphabet)
 		if hint != expectedCodes2[i] {
-			t.Errorf("Case 2 - Match %d: got hint %q, expected %q", i, hint, expectedCodes2[i])
+			t.Errorf("Case 2 - Match %d (Index %d): got hint %q, expected %q", i, m.Index, hint, expectedCodes2[i])
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func TestEncodeDecodeHint(t *testing.T) {
+	// enchode_hint sample tests
+	tests := []struct {
+		num      int
+		alphabet string
+		expected string
+	}{
+		{0, "abc", "a"},
+		{1, "abc", "b"},
+		{2, "abc", "c"},
+		{3, "abc", "aa"},
+		{11, "abc", "cc"},
+		{12, "abc", "aaa"},
+	}
+	for _, tc := range tests {
+		actual := encode_hint(tc.num, tc.alphabet)
+		if actual != tc.expected {
+			t.Errorf("encode_hint(%d, %q) = %q, expected %q", tc.num, tc.alphabet, actual, tc.expected)
+		}
+	}
+
+	// decode_hint should reverse encode_hint (round-trip test)
+	for _, alph := range []string{"abc", "0123456789", DEFAULT_HINT_ALPHABET} {
+		char_to_index := rune_to_index_map(alph)
+		for num := range 200 {
+			hint := encode_hint(num, alph)
+			decoded := decode_hint(hint, char_to_index)
+			if decoded != num {
+				t.Errorf("decode_hint(encode_hint(%d, %q)) = %d, expected %d", num, alph, decoded, num)
+			}
 		}
 	}
 }

kittens/hints/main.go

@@ -89,28 +89,6 @@ type Result struct {
 	Cwd                  string           `json:"cwd"`
 }
 
-func encode_hint(num int, alphabet string) (res string) {
-	runes := []rune(alphabet)
-	d := len(runes)
-	for res == "" || num > 0 {
-		res = string(runes[num%d]) + res
-		num /= d
-	}
-	return
-}
-
-func decode_hint(x string, alphabet string) (ans int) {
-	base := len(alphabet)
-	index_map := make(map[rune]int, len(alphabet))
-	for i, c := range alphabet {
-		index_map[c] = i
-	}
-	for _, char := range x {
-		ans = ans*base + index_map[char]
-	}
-	return
-}
-
 func as_rgb(c uint32) [3]float32 {
 	return [3]float32{float32((c>>16)&255) / 255.0, float32((c>>8)&255) / 255.0, float32(c&255) / 255.0}
 }
@@ -192,12 +170,7 @@ func main(_ *cli.Command, o *Options, args []string) (rc int, err error) {
 	text_style := fctx.SprintFunc(fmt.Sprintf("fg=%s bg=%s bold", o.HintsTextColor, o.HintsTextBackgroundColor))
 
 	highlight_mark := func(m *Mark, mark_text string) string {
-		var hint string
+		hint := encode_hint(m.Index, alphabet)
-		if o.PrefixFree {
-			hint = generate_prefix_free_hint(m.Index, alphabet)
-		} else {
-			hint = encode_hint(m.Index, alphabet)
-		}
 		if current_input != "" && !strings.HasPrefix(hint, current_input) {
 			return faint(mark_text)
 		}
@@ -316,13 +289,7 @@ func main(_ *cli.Command, o *Options, args []string) (rc int, err error) {
 		if changed {
 			matches := []*Mark{}
 			for idx, m := range index_map {
-				var eh string
+				if eh := encode_hint(idx, alphabet); strings.HasPrefix(eh, current_input) {
-				if o.PrefixFree {
-					eh = generate_prefix_free_hint(idx, alphabet)
-				} else {
-					eh = encode_hint(idx, alphabet)
-				}
-				if strings.HasPrefix(eh, current_input) {
 					matches = append(matches, m)
 				}
 			}
@@ -355,7 +322,8 @@ func main(_ *cli.Command, o *Options, args []string) (rc int, err error) {
 		} else if ev.MatchesPressOrRepeat("enter") || ev.MatchesPressOrRepeat("space") {
 			ev.Handled = true
 			if current_input != "" {
-				idx := decode_hint(current_input, alphabet)
+				char_to_index := rune_to_index_map(alphabet)
+				idx := decode_hint(current_input, char_to_index)
 				if m := index_map[idx]; m != nil {
 					chosen = append(chosen, m)
 					ignore_mark_indices.Add(idx)

kittens/hints/marks.go

@@ -716,18 +716,10 @@ process_answer:
 	index_map = make(map[int]*Mark, len(ans))
 	for i := range ans {
 		m := &ans[i]
-		if opts.PrefixFree {
+		if opts.Ascending {
-			if opts.Ascending {
+			m.Index += offset
-				m.Index = i + offset + 1
-			} else {
-				m.Index = (largest_index - m.Index) + offset + 1
-			}
 		} else {
-			if opts.Ascending {
+			m.Index = largest_index - m.Index + offset
-				m.Index += offset
-			} else {
-				m.Index = largest_index - m.Index + offset
-			}
 		}
 		index_map[m.Index] = m
 	}

kittens/hints/prefix_free_hints.go

@@ -1,62 +0,0 @@
-// License: GPLv3 Copyright: 2026, Kovid Goyal, <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
-
-package hints
-
-// hints_to_skip calculates how many hints to skip based on the given n and
-// alphabet size so that the next n hints generated by expanding the prefix tree
-// of an alphabet of size alphabetSize will be prefix-free.
-//
-// The result is 1-based, meaning that the first hint to be skipped is the first
-// non-empty hint.
-//
-// For example, if alphabet was "abc" and n was 5, the first non-empty hints
-// from that alphabet would be: "a", "b", "c", "aa", "ab", "ac", ...
-// the result of hints_to_skip would be 1, and this would mean that if you skip
-// "a" from the list above, the next 5 hints are prefix-free:
-// "b", "c", "aa", "ab", "ac".
-//
-// See issue #10195 for an informal proof on why this function works.
-func hints_to_skip(n int, alphabetSize int) int {
-	if n < 2 {
-		n = 2
-	}
-	return (n - 2) / (alphabetSize - 1)
-}
-
-// generate_prefix_free_hint generates the hint corresponding to the given index
-// in the breadth-first traversal of the prefix tree generated by the given
-// alphabet.
-//
-// For example, given the alphabet "abc", the hints would be generated in
-// the following order:
-// 1. "a"
-// 2. "b"
-// 3. "c"
-// 4. "aa"
-// 5. "ab"
-// 6. "ac"
-// 7. "ba"
-// 8. "bb"
-// 9. "bc"
-// 10. "ca"
-// 11. "cb"
-// 12. "cc"
-// 13. "aaa"
-// ...
-//
-// Indices are 1-based on non-empty hints; index=0 returns an empty (invalid)
-// hint.
-func generate_prefix_free_hint(index int, alphabet string) string {
-	l := len(alphabet)
-
-	hint := ""
-	index -= 1
-	for index >= 0 {
-		mod := index % l
-		char := string(alphabet[mod])
-		index /= l
-		hint = char + hint
-		index -= 1
-	}
-	return hint
-}