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

Put the months in order - 706 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
Split the words - 334 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
Reformat some Python - 518 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 35
  • Number of attempts: 6
Sort and add attributes - 1110 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 34
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change your calendar - 270 entries

Happy New Year!

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 33
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 5628 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 33
  • Number of attempts: 7
SFD-ROC: The Quick Brown Fox - 143 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
HTML to Haml - 746 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 27
  • Number of attempts: 13
Make the circuit grid! - 71 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
Simple, Practical, and Common - 28941 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
attr_aligner - 3202 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 13
Prefixes and suffixes - 523 entries

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

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 7
NATO phonetic alphabet - 408 entries

Transform the series of words into a list.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 4
Fix the XML - 896 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Number of attempts: 9
imports alignment (python) - 583 entries

Align as one import per line.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 12
Reformat most common surnames - 537 entries

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

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Number of attempts: 6
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 397 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 1
From argument to object - 1191 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
Mess in revision history - 1018 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 6
Hole-in-one - 958 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
remove dupes from array - 1257 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
Make Fancy Header - 928 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 5
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 2688 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 12
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1035 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 11
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 542 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
Reverse and double space - 418 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 2
Words in parens - 11811 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap assigned value - 505 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 3
Swap values - 4028 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 3
Space out the alphabet - 1449 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 9976 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 14
Vertical Limit - 2211 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
Switch function arguments - 1872 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 6
Search and Replace 0 - 4391 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 7
Letter case trickery - 1461 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
Append semicolon after expressions - 892 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 4
Where should I put the Newline? - 824 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 3
Count both ways - 905 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 6
Reverse Simple Deletion - 730 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 2
Array transposition - 1852 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Number of attempts: 12
Shebangs for all - 1643 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
Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 508 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
switch variable - 4543 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 9
V to the i - 4255 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 9
Team names - 1598 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change name of a variable - 146 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
The meaning - 508 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change the content of a string - 1260 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1296 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
Mirror Symmetry - 735 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 15637 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 10
Just the middle - 10118 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 6
Increment, increment, increment.... - 503 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 1
A simple change - 368 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 13776 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 8
Remove semicolons after expressions - 488 entries

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

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Number of attempts: 3
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 967 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 3
Collect List - 3793 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 5
abcd > a b c d - 245 entries

transform the single spaces into 4 spaces repeat for each line

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 2609 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 3
That hyphen - 2326 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 3
Delete to the end of the current line - 620 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
A Simple One - 852 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
Saving the hashes(#) - 1854 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
replacing each line of a block selection - 2667 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 10
Don't know what this is - 1847 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
Extract argument from function - 2106 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
Lisp Condense - 396 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 6685 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 6
Basic renumbering - 5022 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 10
Numbering a List - 1756 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 3
PHP Array Syntax -> MailChimp Merge Syntax - 434 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
Add to end of each line... kinda - 269 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
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1100 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
camel riding - 724 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1337 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
Make it more readable - 1791 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 7
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 223 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Number of attempts: 1
-a-b-c- - 2813 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 5
Copy three lines - 2371 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
Every other line - 2393 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 4
quotes inside quotes - 2909 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
Ruby 1.9 compat - 562 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
Simple text editing with Vim - 10898 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
Sort the cardinal numbers - 222 entries

Maybe a simple challenge.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 756 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
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2306 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
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