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.

Your VimGolf key: please sign in

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

Played Challenges

vim = 22 / 7 - 475 entries

pi square vim

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #118 / 135
  • Number of attempts: 6
V to the i - 4830 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #826 / 1903
  • Number of attempts: 6
Extract argument from function - 2376 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #583 / 759
  • Number of attempts: 3
Search and Replace 0 - 5027 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1297 / 1637
  • Number of attempts: 2
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1007 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: 46
  • Position: #310 / 384
  • Number of attempts: 5
Create Leading Zeros - 245 entries

Create leading zeros only for id columns. Please use generic approach!

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 44
  • Position: #60 / 84
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap assigned value - 671 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #168 / 259
  • Number of attempts: 4
VimGolfNight - 575 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #187 / 352
  • Number of attempts: 2
-a-b-c- - 3225 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #749 / 1140
  • Number of attempts: 7
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 253 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #87 / 116
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change name of a variable - 180 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: #45 / 138
  • Number of attempts: 2
Lisp Condense - 460 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #108 / 158
  • Number of attempts: 2
Don't know what this is - 2025 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: 14
  • Position: #293 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 4
Where should I put the Newline? - 883 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #97 / 438
  • Number of attempts: 3
Mess in revision history - 1210 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #189 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 5
Shuffle puzzle - 346 entries

Sort the lines in each indent group, and sort the groups. That's the pattern. Or just move lines around manually to get a better score.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #103 / 104
  • Number of attempts: 2
Going underground.... - 357 entries

Simple reformatting: in this case changing from the format London underground supplies its customers with, to the format that Google Calendar likes...

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 41
  • Position: #115 / 129
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10713 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2983 / 3700
  • Number of attempts: 5
Letter case trickery - 1644 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: 13
  • Position: #396 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 7
quotes inside quotes - 3185 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: 17
  • Position: #840 / 1086
  • Number of attempts: 2
Words in parens - 12992 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #2628 / 3977
  • Number of attempts: 4
Pairs of numbers - 364 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: 61
  • Position: #127 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 1
Delete unwanted lines - 431 entries

Delete all lines which does not end in "o.."

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #137 / 234
  • Number of attempts: 6
Minimalist Limerick - 520 entries

Reproduce this lovely poem.

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 44
  • Position: #153 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 2
Prefixes and suffixes - 638 entries

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

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #185 / 203
  • Number of attempts: 4
The name of the game - 678 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #177 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 1
lamb had a little Mary - 639 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 44
  • Position: #156 / 176
  • Number of attempts: 2
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1620 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #366 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 5
Stairs Indenting - 479 entries

Indent each line with <line number> whitespaces.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #120 / 199
  • Number of attempts: 8
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1138 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #401 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vertical Limit - 2596 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #725 / 767
  • Number of attempts: 4
Exchanging Quotes - 859 entries

Sometimes you need to exchange a choice of quotes in some code.

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #157 / 231
  • Number of attempts: 6
replacing each line of a block selection - 3007 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #539 / 780
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2182 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #486 / 674
  • Number of attempts: 3
Append semicolon after expressions - 1061 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #381 / 421
  • Number of attempts: 2
Remove noise from HTTP log - 729 entries

This piece of log (from the year 2000) contains some irrelevant data. We only want to see the HTTP method and resource.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #225 / 276
  • Number of attempts: 3
switch variable - 5094 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #832 / 1754
  • Number of attempts: 3
The meaning - 577 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #232 / 364
  • Number of attempts: 3
Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1011 entries

convert an ugly spreadsheet copy/paste into a CSV format.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 71
  • Position: #186 / 194
  • Number of attempts: 3
Make it more readable - 2009 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #596 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove dupes from array - 1360 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: 28
  • Position: #292 / 337
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1940 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #572 / 656
  • Number of attempts: 4
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1272 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: 19
  • Position: #360 / 412
  • Number of attempts: 3
Shebangs for all - 2049 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: 20
  • Position: #423 / 523
  • Number of attempts: 6
A Simple One - 1067 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: #388 / 671
  • Number of attempts: 2
The Cake is a Lie - 1386 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #364 / 537
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make Fancy Header - 1075 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #305 / 349
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change the content of a string - 1707 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #443 / 628
  • Number of attempts: 3
Sort and add attributes - 1539 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #427 / 594
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reconstruct the Sentence - 1677 entries

Get the sentence back in the proper order, remove duplicate lines, and then combine the separate lines into one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #357 / 440
  • Number of attempts: 4
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3852 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 56
  • Position: #800 / 829
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 13262 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #2677 / 3810
  • Number of attempts: 6
Patrick Pitoscia
Twitter:

entered into 52 challenges

contributed 0 challenges