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

Simple, Practical, and Common - 34021 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: 24
  • Position: #3000 / 7517
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap values - 4705 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #563 / 1293
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18903 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #2606 / 3904
  • Number of attempts: 1
V to the i - 4884 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1154 / 1914
  • Number of attempts: 1
Extract argument from function - 2428 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #351 / 772
  • Number of attempts: 2
Search and Replace 0 - 5162 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1037 / 1675
  • Number of attempts: 2
That hyphen - 2649 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #457 / 712
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11620 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2156 / 4258
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make HTML List - 1072 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 48
  • Position: #166 / 276
  • Number of attempts: 1
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1052 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: 40
  • Position: #33 / 400
  • Number of attempts: 1
Basic renumbering - 5737 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #916 / 1281
  • Number of attempts: 1
JS notation to Immutable.js notation - 196 entries

Now Immutable.js made its way into many frontends. This challenge consists of a typical refactoring that many of us are facing now.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #25 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 3
Add to end of each line... kinda - 351 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: 12
  • Position: #77 / 181
  • Number of attempts: 2
underscore_to_camelCase - 197 entries

Pointy haired boss decided we need to switch to camelCase. Let's get this over with.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #49 / 86
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 8021 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1241 / 2158
  • Number of attempts: 1
7th Birthday - 237 entries

We have a bunch of numbers written from 0 to 9 in the order present in the text input file. The task is to create 7 by replacing the numbers with dashes.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #48 / 80
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vim's not included features - 266 entries

Filter not included (-) features in a hypothetical installation of vim.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #39 / 70
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1101 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #351 / 433
  • Number of attempts: 1
Mirrored text - 211 entries

backward and forward, and long enough to be challenging

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #46 / 76
  • Number of attempts: 2
lipsum lines - 315 entries

Convert a quoted block of text into strings in a list.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #72 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 1
Inner hyphens - 155 entries

Yet another hyphen challenge. Adding 5 hyphens to a file shouldn't be too hard.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #52 / 90
  • Number of attempts: 1
Replace and keep the case - 471 entries

Replace all instance of plugin and Plugin to device and Device.

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #78 / 123
  • Number of attempts: 2
Scrambled numbers - 830 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #116 / 187
  • Number of attempts: 1
Alsa configuration - 551 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #104 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 1
Manual SQL - 179 entries

Change select and insert queries to simulate inserting a new record.

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 57
  • Position: #23 / 53
  • Number of attempts: 1
Restore order to the alphabet - 212 entries

The numbers are OK. The letters are wonky.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #37 / 75
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mirror Symmetry - 845 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #213 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap assigned value - 695 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #186 / 263
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4342 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #721 / 1200
  • Number of attempts: 1
VimGolfNight - 603 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #235 / 356
  • Number of attempts: 1
camel riding - 817 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #124 / 285
  • Number of attempts: 3
Space out the alphabet - 1696 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #288 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 1
Fix the XML - 1052 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #167 / 292
  • Number of attempts: 1
Line 'em up! - 427 entries

It can be so hard to keep everything neatly lined-up. Somebody clearly hasn't bothered here. Tidy it up, please!

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #92 / 116
  • Number of attempts: 1
Shuffled numbers - 256 entries

Each number is paired with the number it should follow. That's enough information to put them in order.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #82 / 100
  • Number of attempts: 1
Mute the second method of this script - 465 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #212 / 246
  • Number of attempts: 1
Condensed Cases - 829 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: 15
  • Position: #175 / 255
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 16239 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1664 / 4225
  • Number of attempts: 1
-a-b-c- - 3242 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #822 / 1147
  • Number of attempts: 1
Count both ways - 1053 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #251 / 362
  • Number of attempts: 1
Lisp Condense - 484 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #137 / 162
  • Number of attempts: 1
120 Degrees - 517 entries

Rotate that triangle.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #82 / 147
  • Number of attempts: 2
Gray area - 765 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #91 / 277
  • Number of attempts: 4
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1207 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #165 / 309
  • Number of attempts: 4
Two become one - 736 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: 35
  • Position: #162 / 212
  • Number of attempts: 1
Where should I put the Newline? - 911 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #381 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vim tetris - 390 entries

Vim can play tetris too!

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #68 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 1
Mess in revision history - 1235 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #153 / 259
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split the words - 399 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
  • Position: #66 / 115
  • Number of attempts: 4
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10757 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #2790 / 3716
  • Number of attempts: 1
attr_aligner - 3566 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #440 / 710
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letter case trickery - 1687 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: 12
  • Position: #353 / 525
  • Number of attempts: 2
quotes inside quotes - 3202 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: 16
  • Position: #635 / 1093
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 13054 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #2681 / 3991
  • Number of attempts: 1
Pairs of numbers - 387 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: 42
  • Position: #96 / 138
  • Number of attempts: 1
Hole-in-one - 1040 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: 19
  • Position: #187 / 307
  • Number of attempts: 2
Prefixes and suffixes - 668 entries

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

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #95 / 207
  • Number of attempts: 1
The name of the game - 696 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #210 / 369
  • Number of attempts: 1
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1642 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #230 / 457
  • Number of attempts: 1
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1163 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #294 / 459
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vertical Limit - 2637 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #376 / 778
  • Number of attempts: 2
Exchanging Quotes - 878 entries

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

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #122 / 234
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 3068 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #482 / 789
  • Number of attempts: 1
Switch function arguments - 2229 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #291 / 684
  • Number of attempts: 3
Append semicolon after expressions - 1087 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #235 / 426
  • Number of attempts: 2
Remove noise from HTTP log - 759 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: 16
  • Position: #192 / 281
  • Number of attempts: 1
switch variable - 5128 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1416 / 1764
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 2039 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #486 / 658
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove dupes from array - 1377 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: 22
  • Position: #182 / 341
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1969 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #274 / 661
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1313 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: #247 / 419
  • Number of attempts: 2
Assignment Alignment - 909 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #104 / 226
  • Number of attempts: 1
Shebangs for all - 2103 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: 18
  • Position: #389 / 533
  • Number of attempts: 1
A Simple One - 1093 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: #427 / 681
  • Number of attempts: 1
Table Reshuffle - 468 entries

Fix the column order in this table... also append the new 'username' column.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #74 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 2
The Cake is a Lie - 1418 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #383 / 543
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make Fancy Header - 1109 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #247 / 356
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse characters in a line - 845 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #153 / 283
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reformat most common surnames - 837 entries

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

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #166 / 239
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change the content of a string - 1803 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #573 / 656
  • Number of attempts: 1
Sort and add attributes - 1598 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #387 / 617
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reconstruct the Sentence - 1754 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: 21
  • Position: #247 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 3
Braces or Brackets? - 1209 entries

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

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #263 / 365
  • Number of attempts: 1
Flodder-challenge - 1501 entries

Replace the text the most efficient and win!

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #224 / 379
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 13644 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1562 / 3906
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7694 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #1114 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 2
Chenut Ludovic
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entered into 86 challenges

contributed 0 challenges