Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

Pick a challenge, fire up Vim, and show us what you got.

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$ gem install vimgolf
$ vimgolf setup
$ vimgolf put [challenge ID]

Played Challenges

Increment, increment, increment.... - 525 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1113 entries

Rubyists talk about being cutting edge but how many are using 1.9 in production? Time to convert those verbose 1.8 hashes in to symbolic, succinct 1.9 beauties!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 6
quotes inside quotes - 2973 entries

taken from tip 85 of the very good book 'Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought' ! I'd be interested what people use :)

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3217 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 3
Sort the cardinal numbers - 234 entries

Maybe a simple challenge.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 2
V to the i - 4508 entries

Input is 99 V's. Output is 100 i's.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 9
A simple change - 377 entries

Just change the numbers in the most efficient way ...

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 3
Mess in revision history - 1099 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 6
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 227 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Number of attempts: 1
Saving the hashes(#) - 1876 entries

The following file is copied from vimcasts.org(Its only for learning purpose,hope the site owner doesn't mind it), its probably the easiest of challenges.Our goal is to delete every line which doesn't contain a hash signs. The remaining hash signs with numbers are then sorted to get the final output.

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 7
Change name of a variable - 152 entries

Replace the name of the $variable with the fastest move possible. The challenge is having a command that allow you to easily change the variable name even if its indented.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 2
Numbering a List - 1765 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 568 entries

Change the middle part of the function name in multiple places, preferably using the next and dot commands.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 2
Lisp Condense - 401 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove dupes from array - 1260 entries

given a random string that contains a ruby-esque array, make sure that there are no duplicate elements

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 15
Shebangs for all - 1690 entries

We've all seen or used a shebang once or twice. Ditch the specific paths and leave just a dynamic Ruby and Python bath behind.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 17472 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 10
Search and Replace 0 - 4479 entries

Replace every instance of 'aaa' with 'xaaax'.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 7
-a-b-c- - 3004 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 5
From argument to object - 1230 entries

This task typifies those programmers endure while coding. This C-family pseudocode needs a function argument to be repurposed as an object call. Simply search and replace? Repeat a pattern of edits?

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 4
abcd > a b c d - 248 entries

transform the single spaces into 4 spaces repeat for each line

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 1
NATO phonetic alphabet - 429 entries

Transform the series of words into a list.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reformat most common surnames - 539 entries

Reformat copy-pasted table into a list of the most common surnames

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Number of attempts: 6
Fix the XML - 920 entries

The challenge consists in having a valid xml from an incomplete source.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Number of attempts: 9
Add to end of each line... kinda - 280 entries

Visual-block mode can be used to add something to the end of each line, even if they are of differing lengths. However, what if it's not quite at the end?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make Fancy Header - 929 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 5
HTML to Haml - 758 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 27
  • Number of attempts: 13
Basic renumbering - 5279 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 10
Array transposition - 2131 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Number of attempts: 12
Team names - 1699 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 765 entries

Get rid of the '%' symbols and shift the decimal place. This is the easier version - all the columns line up.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1480 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 6
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 2733 entries

Convert tabs to spaces, strip empty lines and trailing whitespace.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 12
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 5734 entries

A simple case of removing unneeded code and fixing broken indentation.

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 33
  • Number of attempts: 7
Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 521 entries

You're replying to an email with silly long lines. Clean them up.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 6
  • Number of attempts: 2
Count both ways - 931 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 6
Split the words - 345 entries

Add the spaces manually if you must, but if you use Vim's spell checking feature wisely, I think you'll save a LARGE number of strokes.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 36
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change your calendar - 278 entries

Happy New Year!

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 33
  • Number of attempts: 4
switch variable - 4778 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 9
camel riding - 731 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
imports alignment (python) - 586 entries

Align as one import per line.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 12
Letter case trickery - 1481 entries

This file is in a downright esoteric format, consisting of hexadecimal numbers, non-hexadecimal keywords, and "Z" indicating end-of-line. Make the hexadecimal numbers lowercase.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 3
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1049 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 11
SFD-ROC: The Quick Brown Fox - 145 entries

Someone has vandalized our text (again). Please fix to read: The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 28
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reformat some Python - 531 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 35
  • Number of attempts: 6
Simple text editing with Vim - 11200 entries

Make the pairs of lines match up by making each second line same as first

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 4
Prefixes and suffixes - 531 entries

Generate all prefixes of "vimchallenge", then all suffixes.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 7
That hyphen - 2411 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 3
Where should I put the Newline? - 830 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 3
The meaning - 515 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Number of attempts: 2
Delete to the end of the current line - 692 entries

Delete to the end of the current line, but keep the character under the cursor.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Number of attempts: 1
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1412 entries

Oh no, this line is longer than 80 chars... put each 'vim' on a new line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 5
Swap values - 4300 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 3
Copy three lines - 2621 entries

If the site is up (by some miracle), make the text under every header identical.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 9
Extract argument from function - 2138 entries

The aim is to see if you can do some refactoring very fast.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 4
Words in parens - 12379 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
Sort and add attributes - 1113 entries

Sort the states and add the attribute country to each record.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 34
  • Number of attempts: 3
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 405 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove semicolons after expressions - 499 entries

A follow-up for http://vimgolf.com/challenges/4fc9d767d3a0d4000100000e.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Number of attempts: 3
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10343 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 14
Swap assigned value - 525 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reverse and double space - 424 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 2
A Simple One - 860 entries

Here is a very simple one - just to illustrate/introduce a vim feature that some people seem to miss...

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 2706 entries

replace each line's ../assets/js with /javascripts

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 10
Change the content of a string - 1270 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 3
Simple, Practical, and Common - 31737 entries

Simple things we do all the time should be able to be done with very few keystrokes, but sometimes I find something I need to do makes me go, "There MUST be a better way." This challenge is just a simple movement and entering text at a certain place.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 8
PHP Array Syntax -> MailChimp Merge Syntax - 440 entries

I recently needed to send an e-mail to our marketing department listing allowed merge tags for our MailChimp campaigns. The allowed merge tags were determined from a PHP array in one of our PHP classes. I transformed the PHP class to MailChimp's syntax and sent the e-mail. It was, however, a long, laborious process. I'm still fairly new to Vim and would love to see how an expert Vim user would tackle one of my own, real-world problems. Thanks and have fun!

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Number of attempts: 13
Vertical Limit - 2264 entries

transform a succession of one word lines to a an array of strings

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 9
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2591 entries

Remove identical text at the beginning of several lines and the closing parenthesis.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 10832 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 6
Append semicolon after expressions - 898 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 4
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 976 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 15145 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 8
Don't know what this is - 1884 entries

Replace contents of brackets with matching number of spaces. Don't ask what the format's supposed to be.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 6
Vice versa - 7165 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 6
Ruby 1.9 compat - 566 entries

Remember when Ruby supported `when <expr> :`? Well, it doesn't in 1.9, so let's make sure we use `then`, without ruining our lovely new hash syntax!

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 6
Switch function arguments - 1893 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 6
Hole-in-one - 963 entries

Lets take this golf thing literally.. Drive off the tee into the hole, and of course you don't strike the ball completely clean.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 7
attr_aligner - 3282 entries

Two attr keywords. Two separate indentations. Align the colons.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 13
Mirror Symmetry - 739 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 5
Put the months in order - 814 entries

Our contractor thought that months should be in alphabetical order. Put them in calendar order please.

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 37
  • Number of attempts: 9
Collect List - 4035 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 5
Every other line - 2686 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 4
multiple cursor alternative - 1375 entries

from: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/6w5pfa/crosspost_from_remacs_how_would_you_do_this_in_vim/

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 7
Make it more readable - 1818 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 7
Make the circuit grid! - 72 entries

Copy this command for a circuit layout program to create 10 total smd commands. Increment the number in quotes to name each pad, and add 0.7 to each of the (X Y) coordinates at the end of each line.

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 26
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reverse Simple Deletion - 736 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 2
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entered into 87 challenges

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