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 - 33940 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: #1813 / 7494
  • Number of attempts: 9
Swap values - 4679 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #439 / 1287
  • Number of attempts: 3
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6380 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1015 / 1557
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18861 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #965 / 3895
  • Number of attempts: 13
V to the i - 4833 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #514 / 1904
  • Number of attempts: 6
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2920 entries

Remove identical text at the beginning of several lines and the closing parenthesis.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #508 / 864
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add string initializers to an enum - 899 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #179 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10929 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #831 / 3089
  • Number of attempts: 4
Bad Copy Syntax - 2072 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #426 / 539
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2171 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #586 / 637
  • Number of attempts: 2
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3631 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #636 / 1179
  • Number of attempts: 7
Com(m)a Trouble - 3969 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #401 / 902
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7987 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #1015 / 1895
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1556 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: 27
  • Position: #326 / 386
  • Number of attempts: 5
html paragraph to table - 634 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 60
  • Position: #74 / 130
  • Number of attempts: 2
From argument to object - 1543 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: #56 / 468
  • Number of attempts: 4
Copy three lines - 2897 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #320 / 643
  • Number of attempts: 6
That hyphen - 2602 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #471 / 704
  • Number of attempts: 4
comment and uncomment code inline - 1158 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: #67 / 329
  • Number of attempts: 4
Just the middle - 11562 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #858 / 4235
  • Number of attempts: 9
Team names - 1854 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #16 / 593
  • Number of attempts: 5
Todo list specification - 408 entries

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

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #138 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 1
Text to HTML Table - 197 entries

Turn the plain text table to an HTML table.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 52
  • Position: #16 / 56
  • Number of attempts: 3
Stairstep digits - 410 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #103 / 150
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 952 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: 16
  • Position: #63 / 222
  • Number of attempts: 4
Simple addition - 337 entries

The right side of the equation is already there. We just need the left one now.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #34 / 125
  • Number of attempts: 4
Interactive git rebase changing commands - 189 entries

How to change the action of some commits in git rebase dialog.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #34 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 2
Adam's challenge - 1018 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: 21
  • Position: #160 / 278
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 884 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: 13
  • Position: #92 / 296
  • Number of attempts: 5
Combines all items - 316 entries

For each line that starts with the same number I want to combine its contents

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #22 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vice versa - 7981 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1318 / 2147
  • Number of attempts: 2
Free hyphen! - 191 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: 9
  • Position: #21 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 3
comments galore - 1079 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #237 / 431
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change attribute to getter - 172 entries

Wrap attributes with a getter method.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #25 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 1
Align commas - 1105 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: 21
  • Position: #226 / 248
  • Number of attempts: 2
Hello ${world} - 344 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #83 / 102
  • Number of attempts: 1
One to Ten - 2243 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: 12
  • Position: #182 / 683
  • Number of attempts: 3
Around the clock - 212 entries

You'll want to use 2 special commands to complete this. If you haven't yet, read through 'input.txt', especially :help simple-changes

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #16 / 79
  • Number of attempts: 5
Join 'em - 254 entries

This shouldn't be too tough

  • Best score: 4
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #68 / 153
  • Number of attempts: 2
Delete to the end of the current line - 865 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #178 / 415
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4317 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #331 / 1194
  • Number of attempts: 8
Sorting database text output - 223 entries

Sometimes it is nice to be able to quickly take column-formatted text output from the SQL command line and turn it into a list of useful data. In this case we want a unique, sorted list of the values from the second column combined into one comma-separated list. What is the fewest strokes you can do this in?

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #76 / 83
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 26
  • Position: #40 / 55
  • Number of attempts: 1
Happy TvvO - 432 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #140 / 207
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 16155 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2219 / 4212
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3225 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #215 / 1140
  • Number of attempts: 7
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #122 / 354
  • 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: 13
  • Position: #267 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10731 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1181 / 3706
  • Number of attempts: 4
Words in parens - 13013 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #832 / 3980
  • Number of attempts: 5
paste indent correction - JS - 112 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: 18
  • Position: #53 / 59
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vertical Limit - 2615 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #562 / 772
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5101 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #485 / 1756
  • Number of attempts: 5
Compile C - 445 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 119
  • Position: #144 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 13441 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #499 / 3855
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7539 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 49
  • Position: #1430 / 1855
  • Number of attempts: 1

Contributed Challenges

Converting group lines from format A to Format B - 35 entries

Convert from one format to another

Charlie OConor
Twitter:

entered into 56 challenges

contributed 1 challenges