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

Wget failed to download redirections - 202 entries

Output of a wget session, where 302 where not properly handled due to certificate problems, has been saved to a file. Keep the correct URLs to start again downloading.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #3 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 4
V to the i - 4802 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #139 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 6
Extract argument from function - 2357 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #107 / 753
  • Number of attempts: 11
Search and Replace 0 - 4989 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #369 / 1624
  • Number of attempts: 9
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #43 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 10
Just the middle - 11448 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #60 / 4196
  • Number of attempts: 4
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 994 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: 41
  • Position: #65 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 4
Basic renumbering - 5648 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #332 / 1264
  • Number of attempts: 7
Swap assigned value - 647 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #72 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 2
Logging with key - 328 entries

Sometimes it is better to log with meaningful key

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #8 / 88
  • Number of attempts: 6
Greek column realign - 51 entries

Oops one letter is missing! Shift down the second column to insert nu letter. Symbol can be entered using: <C-K>n*

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #9 / 25
  • Number of attempts: 2
Winning streak - 135 entries

Make the number on each line equal the consecutive L's or W's.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #5 / 51
  • Number of attempts: 13
Condensed Cases - 804 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: 12
  • Position: #19 / 247
  • Number of attempts: 6
increment by column in XML - 152 entries

modify an arbitrary "column" in an xml table by incrementing a an arbitrary placeholder string

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #18 / 55
  • Number of attempts: 7
Happy TvvO - 426 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #23 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 4
C to VimDict - 53 entries

Convert a C data structure to a Vimscript dictionary.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #3 / 15
  • Number of attempts: 8
I forgot quotes - 15980 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #49 / 4179
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #60 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 4
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #22 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 11
120 Degrees - 493 entries

Rotate that triangle.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #16 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 6
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1158 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #27 / 300
  • Number of attempts: 8
Don't know what this is - 2022 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: 11
  • Position: #34 / 585
  • Number of attempts: 11
Two become one - 713 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: 26
  • Position: #27 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 10
Where should I put the Newline? - 881 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #135 / 437
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mess in revision history - 1184 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #107 / 250
  • Number of attempts: 9
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #572 / 3683
  • Number of attempts: 10
attr_aligner - 3511 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #82 / 698
  • Number of attempts: 14
Under the cupola - 57 entries

Taking some liberty about the name and plot of the Stephen King's famous novel (and TV series) to make this challenge. Are you able to recreate graphically the key phrase of the story? (I think is gonna be hard!)

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #4 / 19
  • Number of attempts: 5
Letter case trickery - 1630 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: 10
  • Position: #126 / 518
  • Number of attempts: 5
quotes inside quotes - 3159 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: #180 / 1078
  • Number of attempts: 7
Words in parens - 12930 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #473 / 3962
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hole-in-one - 1018 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: 16
  • Position: #73 / 304
  • Number of attempts: 8
The name of the game - 665 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #186 / 360
  • Number of attempts: 2
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1606 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: #66 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 11
Saving the hashes(#) - 2063 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
  • Position: #102 / 480
  • Number of attempts: 10
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1118 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #76 / 445
  • Number of attempts: 4
Vertical Limit - 2538 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #231 / 754
  • Number of attempts: 6
Exchanging Quotes - 858 entries

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

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #35 / 230
  • Number of attempts: 12
replacing each line of a block selection - 2999 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #175 / 777
  • Number of attempts: 17
Switch function arguments - 2139 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #109 / 663
  • Number of attempts: 6
Append semicolon after expressions - 1056 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #83 / 419
  • Number of attempts: 3
Remove noise from HTTP log - 717 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: 15
  • Position: #96 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 4
switch variable - 5071 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #342 / 1748
  • Number of attempts: 12
The meaning - 575 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #246 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1009 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #3 / 193
  • Number of attempts: 16
Make it more readable - 2005 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #63 / 650
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove dupes from array - 1358 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
  • Position: #62 / 336
  • Number of attempts: 11
imports alignment (python) - 700 entries

Align as one import per line.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #38 / 198
  • Number of attempts: 10
HTML to Haml - 878 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #7 / 204
  • Number of attempts: 17
Numbering a List - 1931 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #105 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 10
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1244 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: 12
  • Position: #69 / 406
  • Number of attempts: 6
Assignment Alignment - 883 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #36 / 220
  • Number of attempts: 12
Shebangs for all - 1998 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: 11
  • Position: #31 / 515
  • Number of attempts: 12
A Simple One - 1048 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: #400 / 663
  • Number of attempts: 2
Ruby 1.9 compat - 629 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
  • Position: #50 / 234
  • Number of attempts: 7
Reverse Simple Deletion - 847 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #26 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 2
The Cake is a Lie - 1344 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #200 / 526
  • Number of attempts: 7
Context insensitive completion 0 - 577 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: 7
  • Position: #89 / 246
  • Number of attempts: 3
Almost encrypted - 204 entries

Convert the first paragraph to be even less readable.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #110 / 146
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make Fancy Header - 1046 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #95 / 343
  • Number of attempts: 5
Change the content of a string - 1575 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #150 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 8
Sort and add attributes - 1447 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #188 / 562
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reconstruct the Sentence - 1498 entries

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

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #91 / 411
  • Number of attempts: 7
Braces or Brackets? - 1014 entries

Someone forgot whether to use braces or brackets and you have to clean up their code!

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #18 / 314
  • Number of attempts: 14
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3646 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #105 / 783
  • Number of attempts: 20
Flodder-challenge - 1259 entries

Replace the text the most efficient and win!

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #13 / 334
  • Number of attempts: 13
Simple text editing with Vim - 12787 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #321 / 3688
  • Number of attempts: 15
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6962 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #114 / 1701
  • Number of attempts: 14
kimber gonzalez
Twitter:

Writer, editor, creative, mom. Mostly just mom these days. Disclaimer: I am very bad at twitter but do share interesting links i find and writing updates here.

entered into 68 challenges

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