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 - 33353 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 / 7358
  • Number of attempts: 9
Swap values - 4535 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #435 / 1255
  • Number of attempts: 3
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6201 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #986 / 1514
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18613 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #952 / 3841
  • Number of attempts: 13
V to the i - 4743 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #514 / 1878
  • Number of attempts: 6
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2845 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #492 / 840
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add string initializers to an enum - 862 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #172 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10785 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #816 / 3042
  • Number of attempts: 4
Bad Copy Syntax - 1999 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #409 / 514
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2124 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #581 / 629
  • Number of attempts: 2
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3528 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #619 / 1142
  • Number of attempts: 7
Com(m)a Trouble - 3654 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #369 / 821
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7818 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #997 / 1861
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1474 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: #316 / 376
  • Number of attempts: 5
html paragraph to table - 590 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 60
  • Position: #70 / 123
  • Number of attempts: 2
From argument to object - 1474 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 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 4
Copy three lines - 2839 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #317 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 6
That hyphen - 2554 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #467 / 694
  • Number of attempts: 4
comment and uncomment code inline - 1069 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 / 314
  • Number of attempts: 4
Just the middle - 11346 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #858 / 4160
  • Number of attempts: 9
Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #16 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 5
Todo list specification - 385 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: #133 / 176
  • Number of attempts: 1
Text to HTML Table - 171 entries

Turn the plain text table to an HTML table.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 52
  • Position: #16 / 49
  • Number of attempts: 3
Stairstep digits - 376 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #100 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 856 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: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #56 / 209
  • Number of attempts: 4
Simple addition - 307 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 / 116
  • Number of attempts: 4
Interactive git rebase changing commands - 161 entries

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

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #32 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 2
Adam's challenge - 950 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: #152 / 265
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 840 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 / 287
  • Number of attempts: 5
Combines all items - 303 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 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vice versa - 7778 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1296 / 2095
  • Number of attempts: 2
Free hyphen! - 159 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 / 85
  • Number of attempts: 3
comments galore - 998 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #237 / 418
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change attribute to getter - 133 entries

Wrap attributes with a getter method.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #25 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 1
Align commas - 1049 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: #220 / 241
  • Number of attempts: 2
Hello ${world} - 299 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #77 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 1
One to Ten - 2159 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 / 660
  • Number of attempts: 3
Around the clock - 188 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 / 74
  • Number of attempts: 5
Join 'em - 247 entries

This shouldn't be too tough

  • Best score: 4
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #62 / 147
  • Number of attempts: 2
Delete to the end of the current line - 738 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 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4261 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #331 / 1185
  • Number of attempts: 8
Sorting database text output - 219 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: #75 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 1
increment by column in XML - 146 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #39 / 53
  • Number of attempts: 1
Happy TvvO - 403 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #140 / 200
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 15922 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2190 / 4159
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3170 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #215 / 1127
  • Number of attempts: 7
Count both ways - 997 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #120 / 350
  • Number of attempts: 2
Don't know what this is - 1978 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: #263 / 578
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10616 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1181 / 3663
  • Number of attempts: 4
Words in parens - 12848 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #819 / 3943
  • Number of attempts: 5
paste indent correction - JS - 102 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: #51 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vertical Limit - 2436 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #536 / 735
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5028 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #485 / 1734
  • Number of attempts: 5
Compile C - 365 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 119
  • Position: #131 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 12232 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 / 3567
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6511 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 49
  • Position: #1294 / 1602
  • Number of attempts: 1

Contributed Challenges

Converting group lines from format A to Format B - 20 entries

Convert from one format to another

Charlie OConor
Twitter:

entered into 56 challenges

contributed 1 challenges