Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

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

Changelog, Rules & FAQ, updates: @vimgolf, RSS.

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

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33385 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
  • Position: #254 / 7364
  • Number of attempts: 4
V to the i - 4751 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #6 / 1879
  • Number of attempts: 2
Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 679 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #206 / 386
  • Number of attempts: 1
Extract argument from function - 2314 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #64 / 744
  • Number of attempts: 4
Search and Replace 0 - 4792 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #336 / 1585
  • Number of attempts: 3
That hyphen - 2556 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #281 / 695
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 11360 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #89 / 4164
  • Number of attempts: 3
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 938 entries

A novice Python using prints Hello World! and a pro shows him different way. Using vim to get into pro style from novice, win the challenge.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #166 / 364
  • Number of attempts: 1
Acute accents - 32 entries

Featuring all 17 lowercase letters with an acute accent digraph. Find a way to automate the digraphs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3 / 24
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5587 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #501 / 1258
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change your calendar - 362 entries

Happy New Year!

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #53 / 85
  • Number of attempts: 1
VimGolfNight - 536 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #183 / 343
  • Number of attempts: 1
Condensed Cases - 788 entries

Apple's new programming language, Swift, allows two style of case statements: 1) one Enum case on each line, or 2) multiple Enum cases on a single line. Convert the following from the first case (no pun intended) to the second type.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #106 / 242
  • Number of attempts: 1
Square numbers - 99 entries

Boring math puzzle.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #11 / 40
  • Number of attempts: 1
Happy TvvO - 407 entries

Don’t forget the past, learn from it. Happy New Year.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #46 / 201
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 15931 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #12 / 4161
  • Number of attempts: 3
Shift down - 193 entries

Number words are back.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #10 / 67
  • Number of attempts: 4
learn vim in short time - 232 entries

so happy to learn vim.because vim is awesome

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #16 / 158
  • Number of attempts: 1
vim1001 - 275 entries

change number 1001 into a "vim1001 sequence". (My first challenge, hope it is not too bad... )

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #16 / 107
  • Number of attempts: 2
Subtraction - 178 entries

Solve the equations.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #7 / 61
  • Number of attempts: 3
Roman numerals - 68 entries

Use the substitutions on top to convert unary to Roman numerals.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #10 / 27
  • Number of attempts: 2
-a-b-c- - 3176 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #16 / 1129
  • Number of attempts: 2
Count both ways - 1001 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #4 / 351
  • Number of attempts: 2
Suffix sort - 254 entries

Sort from the end of the line, as if the letters in each line were reversed.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #36 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 2
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 243 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3 / 114
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change name of a variable - 169 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
  • Position: #8 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 1
Lisp Condense - 438 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #2 / 154
  • Number of attempts: 3
120 Degrees - 468 entries

Rotate that triangle.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #52 / 143
  • Number of attempts: 3
Gray area - 732 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #32 / 268
  • Number of attempts: 2
NBCU Weekly Challenge - #0 - 125 entries

One of our favorites lines here at NBCU! p.s. The first version of #0 was deleted due to me copy/pasting a HTML entity. Congrats to the one who figured that out, you are a true ninja warrior!

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #6 / 56
  • Number of attempts: 3
Refactor static member invocation - 198 entries

Someone used a static method. Refactor the method into a static import while fixing the assertion.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #12 / 63
  • Number of attempts: 2
Winding path - 93 entries

It's a maze, but the bad paths have been blocked off. Mark the correct path.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 46
  • Position: #17 / 40
  • Number of attempts: 1
Comparing scores - 94 entries

If Alice and Bob both did the challenge, put their entries together in the top paragraph, so we can compare their scores more easily.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #19 / 33
  • Number of attempts: 5
Neither Fizz nor Buzz - 226 entries

Not your regular increment macro! The gaps are tricky.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #30 / 99
  • Number of attempts: 1
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1120 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #4 / 293
  • Number of attempts: 5
Don't know what this is - 1978 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
  • Position: #138 / 578
  • Number of attempts: 3
Two become one - 710 entries

We have two c arrays and want to make one two dimensional out of it. Can we do that?

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #112 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 1
Where should I put the Newline? - 863 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #56 / 431
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split the words - 356 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: 28
  • Position: #28 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 4
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10624 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #381 / 3666
  • Number of attempts: 5
Letter case trickery - 1594 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
  • Position: #249 / 511
  • Number of attempts: 2
quotes inside quotes - 3125 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: 14
  • Position: #169 / 1072
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hanging Indent for Footnotes - 69 entries

Format this footnote (in kramdown syntax) so that it has hanging indent.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #27 / 28
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sort the VimGolf challenges by popularity - 345 entries

"Sort by popularity" is a good order to play the challenges. Not perfect, but you could do a lot worse. ;) Input is a sample copy-pasted from vimgolf.com. Some of the challenge names have digits that will get in your way, so read ":help :sort" for hints on sorting with a regex. When you're done, try your solution on the full list!

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #53 / 105
  • Number of attempts: 2
Words in parens - 12858 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #395 / 3946
  • Number of attempts: 3
Pairs of numbers - 360 entries

Line 1 represents x, line 2 y-data. Bring the corresponding pairs in the form "[x,y]\n"

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #40 / 133
  • Number of attempts: 3
paste indent correction - JS - 102 entries

You copy some javascript code from a website and paste it into vim, it does not look good!

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #30 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 1
Word frequency alignment - 274 entries

You've got to align the second column, but the spacing is inconvenient and there are nasty tabs in the way. If you're a "real Vim ninja," this could be very quick indeed...

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #91 / 157
  • Number of attempts: 1
Minimalist Limerick - 516 entries

Reproduce this lovely poem.

  • Best score: 31
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #104 / 171
  • Number of attempts: 2
fib.c cleanup - 66 entries

cleanup the file

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #37 / 54
  • Number of attempts: 1
REDRUM - 150 entries

If you remember "The Shinning", the first time you saw the bloody word REDRUM you probably thinked "What the Hell is that?" Well, then you know that you need a little help from a looking-glass to make sense of it. Now it's time to use vim like a mirror to reveal the message.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #16 / 62
  • Number of attempts: 2
Groups magic - 150 entries

Regexp or macros for string converting: (a) -> ___ (abc) -> ____ (abcd) -> ______ All in the '(' replace to _ multiply by char count + ()

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #52 / 90
  • Number of attempts: 2
Prefixes and suffixes - 593 entries

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

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #58 / 193
  • Number of attempts: 4
Checkerboard case pattern - 148 entries

All the squares are white. Make some of them black. But only the right ones.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #38 / 58
  • Number of attempts: 2
A simple change - 442 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #23 / 189
  • Number of attempts: 3
SFD-ROC: The Quick Brown Fox - 169 entries

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

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #68 / 101
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Vim - 401 entries

Someone has vandalized this text file and replaced the beginning character of one word in each line with a Big "X." Please remove the big X's, and fix each line to read "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog."

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #136 / 188
  • Number of attempts: 1
lamb had a little Mary - 586 entries

"Mary" and "lamb" are swapped. Unswap them. Fast as you can.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #88 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 4
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1581 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #56 / 439
  • Number of attempts: 4
Saving the hashes(#) - 1992 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: 29
  • Position: #329 / 473
  • Number of attempts: 2
SFD-ROC: ROT13 Phonics - 98 entries

A is for apple, b is for ball, etc... This familiar phonics poem has been rotated 13 characters. Make the letter match the word.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #44 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 1
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1091 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #67 / 441
  • Number of attempts: 3
you're stuck on jQuery < 1.7 - 337 entries

replace calls to jQuery 1.7+'s `on` with calls to pre 1.7 `bind`

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #48 / 111
  • Number of attempts: 3
Enharmonic Equivalents - 56 entries

Transform # and b to digraphs

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #31 / 35
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2442 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #222 / 738
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make the circuit grid! - 87 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
  • Position: #24 / 48
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2082 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #100 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 5
Append semicolon after expressions - 1005 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #76 / 403
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reverse and double space - 489 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #101 / 194
  • Number of attempts: 3
Remove semicolons after expressions - 628 entries

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

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #75 / 258
  • Number of attempts: 4
switch variable - 5036 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #309 / 1736
  • Number of attempts: 4
The meaning - 558 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #231 / 356
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 1952 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #164 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 5
Complete the hex array data - 195 entries

Do not use external tools(e.g. tac, seq) [My interpretation of Rule #7]

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #43 / 72
  • Number of attempts: 1
Complete the hex array data (Part II) - 156 entries

Do not use external tools(e.g. tac, seq) [My interpretation of Rule #7]

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #48 / 67
  • Number of attempts: 2
It'ss tooo coold too typpe todaay - 215 entries

My hands are numb with cold. It's hard to type correctly.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #62 / 96
  • Number of attempts: 1
Generate English Alphabets - 473 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #134 / 202
  • Number of attempts: 1
Insert a Markdown link - 431 entries

Put a link in a markdown document, using the after-the-paragraph format.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #62 / 143
  • Number of attempts: 4
Numbering a List - 1859 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #128 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 3
The holy-grail may help - 345 entries

Can you find it in less than 20 strokes, Arthur?

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #134 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 2
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1221 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: 14
  • Position: #229 / 401
  • Number of attempts: 1
Assignment Alignment - 832 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #105 / 215
  • Number of attempts: 6
A Simple One - 1001 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
  • Position: #389 / 643
  • Number of attempts: 1
82 bottles of beer on the wall - 303 entries

Take them down. (sorry, only 82 bottles because the problem size is limited!)

  • Best score: 106
  • Best player score: 120
  • Position: #40 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse Simple Deletion - 832 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #295 / 454
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 662 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #281 / 401
  • Number of attempts: 1
Hatsuyume - 457 entries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsuyume

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #75 / 175
  • Number of attempts: 2
The Cake is a Lie - 1286 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #186 / 512
  • Number of attempts: 3
Context insensitive completion 0 - 507 entries

Buried in the lines you're not supposed to add is the line "Add this line!" Add that line to the top of the file.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #135 / 232
  • Number of attempts: 1
Compile C - 365 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #68 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 4
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 460 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #118 / 233
  • Number of attempts: 2
Almost encrypted - 198 entries

Convert the first paragraph to be even less readable.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #109 / 144
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make Fancy Header - 1014 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #184 / 338
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reverse characters in a line - 709 entries

You have everything you need, just not in the right order. Mastermind would give you 26 white pegs.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #183 / 249
  • Number of attempts: 4
Get rid of html tags - 368 entries

Want to read more about Vim's background? Then get rid of those html tags...

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #98 / 217
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change the content of a string - 1476 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #139 / 558
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sort and add attributes - 1327 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #183 / 529
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple text editing with Vim - 12290 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1278 / 3581
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6560 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #444 / 1616
  • Number of attempts: 3

Contributed Challenges

Subtraction - 178 entries

Solve the equations.

Caek
Twitter:

Yes hello, Caek here.

entered into 99 challenges

contributed 1 challenges