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

Satisfy the go linter - 2374 entries

You just came up with this briliant go vars package. But dang, you forgot to add comments to the exported variables. Can you add a comment over each variable with a TODO-placeholder?

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #289 / 469
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 952 entries

You created an ansible playbook, but forgot to add quotes. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #229 / 304
  • Number of attempts: 1
xrandr outputs and dashes - 702 entries

uh oh, different video drivers identify display outputs with more dashes. Quick, need to change this xrandr script!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #203 / 221
  • Number of attempts: 2
From a Thunderlink to a Markdown link - 764 entries

ThunderLinks are durable hyperlinks to specific email messages generated from Thunderbird in HTML format. Leverage the power of vim to make them suitable for a markdown-formatted file.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #89 / 169
  • Number of attempts: 4
Simple, Practical, and Common - 33571 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: #477 / 7405
  • Number of attempts: 18
Swap values - 4609 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #901 / 1266
  • Number of attempts: 7
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6297 entries

Prepend an asterisk to every non-blank line in the input file.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #457 / 1534
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 18709 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #38 / 3856
  • Number of attempts: 6
Quote modules - 1072 entries

Complete golang import statement.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #113 / 279
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values inside brackets - 2480 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #232 / 575
  • Number of attempts: 8
V to the i - 4796 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #379 / 1891
  • Number of attempts: 5
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 323 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #51 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add string initializers to an enum - 872 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #123 / 258
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add semicolons - 10845 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1411 / 3060
  • Number of attempts: 1
Bad Copy Syntax - 2028 entries

Copy should be from right to left, but sometimes you type it wrong.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #161 / 522
  • Number of attempts: 9
Split line with dots - 2144 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #225 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 6
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3574 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #562 / 1158
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3780 entries

Someone was real stupid when placing his commas. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #356 / 855
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7902 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #276 / 1874
  • Number of attempts: 10
Triangular Numbers - 104 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #24 / 29
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1519 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
  • Position: #43 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 5
From argument to object - 1503 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
  • Position: #74 / 455
  • Number of attempts: 3
Every other line - 2910 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #493 / 703
  • Number of attempts: 3
Copy three lines - 2872 entries

If the site is up (by some miracle), make the text under every header identical.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #84 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 7
Array propagate - 338 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #74 / 119
  • Number of attempts: 2
Extract argument from function - 2355 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #195 / 752
  • Number of attempts: 3
Start coding format - 155 entries

I used to start coding with following format: int main(){ -(cursor here) }

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #59 / 72
  • Number of attempts: 6
Search and Replace 0 - 4964 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #862 / 1617
  • Number of attempts: 4
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 540 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #48 / 129
  • Number of attempts: 3
Number Sort - 314 entries

sort the list of newline-separated numbers incrementally. Numbers are in the range 1 to 1000, with 500 missing

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #39 / 166
  • Number of attempts: 1
comment and uncomment code inline - 1118 entries

It's very useful to be able to comment out a block of code in a quick edit. And likewise to uncomment the code. This operation often involves multi-line stanzas and even large blocks. With just line-wise navigation and insert mode this would cost you about 4 keystrokes per line. Master this hole of VimGolf and you'll quickly drop your key count in day to day Vim as well.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #85 / 321
  • Number of attempts: 3
Flip the bit - 130 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #64 / 74
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 11423 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #641 / 4185
  • Number of attempts: 5
Team names - 1834 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #82 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make HTML List - 1050 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #152 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 2
Todo list specification - 399 entries

The every item on the todo list must be done today. Modify the list to reflect that.

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #60 / 179
  • Number of attempts: 5
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 989 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: #74 / 379
  • Number of attempts: 4
For all cases. - 160 entries

In this case... change it! :) Watch the line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #54 / 105
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 261 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #71 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 887 entries

I forgot to add a c library, please add it for me. Also I'm bad at typing so fix my typo too.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #115 / 213
  • Number of attempts: 4
Basic renumbering - 5645 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #456 / 1263
  • Number of attempts: 13
Adam's challenge - 978 entries

Change both normal to bold and 4 by 2. Adam Wathan challenge this on twitter . He did it in 11 keystrokes on Sublime.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #115 / 268
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 862 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
  • Position: #182 / 289
  • Number of attempts: 2
Nesting SASS - 265 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #35 / 95
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fun With The Diagonal - 107 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #57 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7898 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #731 / 2124
  • Number of attempts: 4
Free hyphen! - 169 entries

Just like "Inner hyphens", but I'm giving you a free hyphen to play with. Will your solution be any different?

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #77 / 89
  • Number of attempts: 1
Paragraph sort - 450 entries

My large herbivorous mammals, Vim commands, and POSIX utilities need to be sorted separately.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #13 / 125
  • Number of attempts: 5
Paragraph breaks - 522 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #151 / 167
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1041 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #181 / 423
  • Number of attempts: 4
Mirrored text - 177 entries

backward and forward, and long enough to be challenging

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #20 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 7
Scrambled numbers - 807 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #8 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 9
Align commas - 1092 entries

There are 15,000 aligning challenges on vimgolf.com, and they're all exactly the same. I hope this one is a little different.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #117 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 2
Generate a list of numbers - 295 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #80 / 140
  • Number of attempts: 2
One to Ten - 2209 entries

Generate the sequence of numbers from 1 to 10, one number per line. Inspired by this Reddit thread: https://redd.it/ak4it2

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #423 / 669
  • Number of attempts: 3
Delete to the end of the current line - 810 entries

Delete to the end of the current line, but keep the character under the cursor.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #221 / 389
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove quotes after first field - 380 entries

Remove the quotes around each field except for the first field.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #61 / 91
  • Number of attempts: 1
move titles next to url, in quotes - 529 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #92 / 139
  • Number of attempts: 6
Array transposition - 2415 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #99 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 11
Assign numbers to fields - 116 entries

You are given a list of space-separated strings. Add an increasing numeric prefix to each one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #22 / 62
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mirror Symmetry - 822 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #78 / 269
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap assigned value - 643 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #88 / 253
  • Number of attempts: 2
From A to B - 591 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #19 / 159
  • Number of attempts: 5
Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #217 / 1190
  • Number of attempts: 5
camel riding - 793 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #142 / 281
  • Number of attempts: 4
Logging with key - 328 entries

Sometimes it is better to log with meaningful key

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #21 / 88
  • Number of attempts: 8
Space out the alphabet - 1657 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #82 / 444
  • Number of attempts: 11
Mute the second method of this script - 455 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #125 / 239
  • Number of attempts: 1
Test everything! - 186 entries

... and build the desired input data structure. Transform a list of values into a non-trivial format.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #13 / 54
  • Number of attempts: 12
Condensed Cases - 800 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: #51 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 8
Happy TvvO - 426 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #129 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 15967 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #405 / 4174
  • Number of attempts: 8
Replace Parameter with Explicit Methods - 76 entries

Implementing the methods of a Java Interface

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #12 / 27
  • Number of attempts: 5
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #349 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 2
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #44 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 4
Neither Fizz nor Buzz - 253 entries

Not your regular increment macro! The gaps are tricky.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #29 / 103
  • Number of attempts: 2
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1158 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #214 / 300
  • Number of attempts: 2
Don't know what this is - 2014 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: #215 / 582
  • Number of attempts: 3
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10656 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #963 / 3679
  • Number of attempts: 3
attr_aligner - 3498 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #210 / 696
  • Number of attempts: 11
Letter case trickery - 1621 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: 9
  • Position: #20 / 516
  • Number of attempts: 8
quotes inside quotes - 3154 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: #940 / 1075
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12928 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #683 / 3960
  • Number of attempts: 9
Hole-in-one - 1017 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: #185 / 303
  • Number of attempts: 3
Word frequency alignment - 290 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: #102 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 6
Harder than "abcd > a b c d" - 93 entries

Not as easy as the last challenge. This time, just one space between a and b, up to 25 spaces between y and z. (Removed some lines; diff was too long.)

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #22 / 42
  • Number of attempts: 1
A simple change - 461 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #120 / 191
  • Number of attempts: 5
The name of the game - 665 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #231 / 360
  • Number of attempts: 2
Alphabet soup - 429 entries

Create a column of all alphabet characters organized in a funky way

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #102 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2522 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #482 / 751
  • Number of attempts: 5
Switch function arguments - 2117 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #146 / 657
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: #119 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 5
switch variable - 5065 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #630 / 1745
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make it more readable - 1986 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #307 / 646
  • Number of attempts: 4
Numbering a List - 1931 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #464 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 3
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1236 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
  • Position: #173 / 404
  • Number of attempts: 9
A Simple One - 1043 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: #468 / 659
  • Number of attempts: 1
Table Reshuffle - 410 entries

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

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #62 / 138
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 677 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #343 / 405
  • Number of attempts: 1
Context insensitive completion 0 - 558 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: #147 / 242
  • Number of attempts: 2
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 494 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #135 / 243
  • Number of attempts: 3
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3589 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #351 / 775
  • Number of attempts: 7
Simple text editing with Vim - 12680 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #418 / 3665
  • Number of attempts: 5

Contributed Challenges

Alphabet soup - 429 entries

Create a column of all alphabet characters organized in a funky way

Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 540 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

Refactor typescript arrow function type - 323 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

Add string initializers to an enum - 872 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

xrandr outputs and dashes - 702 entries

uh oh, different video drivers identify display outputs with more dashes. Quick, need to change this xrandr script!

Arijus
Twitter:

Frontend @wix

entered into 103 challenges

contributed 5 challenges