VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

Quicksort - 1559 entries

We need the numbers in the first row sorted as quickly as possible! Be careful not to disturb the data below the divider though: that must remain unchanged.

Best score: 6
Best player score: 24
Position: #194 / 344
Number of attempts: 5

EDN reformat - 1055 entries

The goal is to make the code more readable and concise while maintaining its functionality.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 68
Position: #136 / 147
Number of attempts: 5

Tic-Tac-Toe Grid Transformation - 321 entries

Your mission is to efficiently convert the original Tic-Tac-Toe grid, represented by 'x's and 'o's, into a neat and well-organized game board.

Best score: 56
Best player score: 70
Position: #18 / 78
Number of attempts: 8

Pick and sort servers from mirror list - 344 entries

Retrieve the primary server for each country from a mirror list file and organize them alphabetically by country name. Given a mirror list file containing server information for various countries, the objective is to extract the primary server from each country and then arrange these servers in alphabetical order based on the respective country names.

Best score: 28
Best player score: 107
Position: #74 / 75
Number of attempts: 1

Populate 3D bone names list - 456 entries

Ran into this at work, excited to see how this gets optimized

Best score: 21
Best player score: 21
Position: #16 / 120
Number of attempts: 16

Remove line numbers - 543 entries

From http://web.archive.org/web/20140831121704/http://dirac.org/linux/gdb/02a-Memory_Layout_And_The_Stack.php#investigatingthestackwithgdb.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 36
Position: #119 / 146
Number of attempts: 4

Find fix point of cos - 1137 entries

Write a function to find the fix point of cos. It is not a good code; It is just to use vim. Inspired by the excellent https://mvanier.livejournal.com/2897.html about the Y combinator.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 15
Position: #163 / 340
Number of attempts: 13

Insert column data on Confluence-style table - 425 entries

Add ip addresses into new "IP" column based on the last digits from the "Server" column

Best score: 33
Best player score: 34
Position: #21 / 99
Number of attempts: 24

Surround the 'z' character with brackets, quotes, and print as formatted string. - 485 entries

Surround the 'z' character with brackets, quotes, and print as formatted string.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #159 / 271
Number of attempts: 1

Easier Align - 347 entries

Align the columns of a markdown table

Best score: 51
Best player score: 154
Position: #42 / 90
Number of attempts: 5

Paste a column after a column - 2262 entries

This task is very common while using multi-cursor. What is the elegant vim way ?

Best score: 14
Best player score: 15
Position: #100 / 491
Number of attempts: 10

Filter number combinations that don't add to 11 - 376 entries

Append the sum of each line to its end, alongside an equals sign, and remove any that do not sum to 11. The ordering of lines should stay the same. Note that the combinations are semi-arbitrary and not all 4-number combinations are present in the file.

Best score: 27
Best player score: 27
Position: #35 / 110
Number of attempts: 7

Tabbed Table to Python Array - 644 entries

Not payed by the hour? So make it fast ;-) The table contains the relative occurencies of bigrams (two consecutive letters) in 1/100,000 in the german language, copy-pasted from http://www.mathe.tu-freiberg.de/~hebisch/cafe/kryptographie/bigramme.html

Best score: 50
Best player score: 52
Position: #23 / 167
Number of attempts: 9

HS exam question - 1510 entries

Convert the data to a python dictionary

Best score: 47
Best player score: 49
Position: #53 / 397
Number of attempts: 14

Reformat symbols in list - 1470 entries

Saw this in some lecture, easy reformatting using multiple cursor in VS Code

Best score: 24
Best player score: 24
Position: #55 / 323
Number of attempts: 7

Poorly indented Python comments - 1173 entries

Fix the alignment of some Python comments as quickly as possible.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #44 / 204
Number of attempts: 22

Fix the shell script! - 2344 entries

Fix the shell script with the fewest keystrokes!

Best score: 26
Best player score: 27
Position: #114 / 542
Number of attempts: 8

Put a newline after every 10 lines in vim - 1578 entries

Goal is to put a newline after every 10 lines in vim.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #40 / 525
Number of attempts: 5

Contribute to keyboard mashing - 841 entries

Speak in tongues

Best score: 17
Best player score: 21
Position: #212 / 257
Number of attempts: 6

Fill in the chess board - 905 entries

Fill in the name of each square using its file (a-h) and rank (1-8).

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #33 / 175
Number of attempts: 27

Plotting some variables in python - 1567 entries

4 sets of (x,y) variables to plot. Just increment the numbers! Well, let's change the colors of the lines as well. Oh and we meant to plot the absolute values of course.

Best score: 34
Best player score: 35
Position: #83 / 334
Number of attempts: 11

Transpose a python matrix - 845 entries

Rotate the matrix in 90 degrees.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 24
Position: #39 / 134
Number of attempts: 12

simple replacements - 1662 entries

The goal is to see the replacement commands in action.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 22
Position: #169 / 371
Number of attempts: 6

Inverting Lines - 1837 entries

A simple challenge to invert all lines, except the first.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #208 / 498
Number of attempts: 5

Python dataclasses - 1104 entries

Simple challenge to extract fields from a Python class

Best score: 19
Best player score: 20
Position: #106 / 277
Number of attempts: 13

Count to 100 in word form - 107 entries

Write all the numbers from 1 to 100, using their word forms rather than the digit form. Most of the parts you will need are included in the input file. Use hyphens when appropriate.

Best score: 53
Best player score: 55
Position: #5 / 26
Number of attempts: 12

Rural Post - 4368 entries

Simple challenge to remove all but the post code on each line

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #199 / 1072
Number of attempts: 12

Satisfy the go linter - 2329 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: 20
Position: #151 / 457
Number of attempts: 15

xrandr outputs and dashes - 652 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: 24
Position: #201 / 213
Number of attempts: 3

Yo To Hello - 1115 entries

Simply Turn Yo To Hello

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #388 / 518
Number of attempts: 1

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33385 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: #841 / 7364
Number of attempts: 19

Swap values - 4543 entries

Well, swap the values...

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #424 / 1257
Number of attempts: 5

prepend * to every non-blank line - 6208 entries

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

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #438 / 1517
Number of attempts: 8

One number per line - 18616 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #195 / 3842
Number of attempts: 15

Unsemantic linewrapping - 890 entries

[Inspired by a blog post I read: https://scott.mn/2014/02/21/semantic_linewrapping/. Text adapted.] Sometimes when editing a Markdown file, I wrap the lines semantically. Instead of inserting a newline at 70 columns (or whatever), or making paragraphs one long line, I put in newlines at a point that seems logical to me. This may seem silly, but it produces better diffs. Semantic linewrapping also makes editing snappier. I can delete, edit or insert sentences easily using linewise operations. Code-oriented text editors like Vim and [REDACTED] are really good at this kind of manipulation. Editing text that hasn't been wrapped semantically is a pain, though:

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #101 / 224
Number of attempts: 14

V to the i - 4751 entries

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

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #482 / 1879
Number of attempts: 6

SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case - 1181 entries

Convert strings in SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case. Examples: EMPLOYEE_NAME -> Employee Name REVENUE_YEAR_TO_DATE -> Revenue Year To Date SALARY -> Salary

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #62 / 244
Number of attempts: 11

Split line with dots - 2125 entries

This line is too long, split it.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #114 / 630
Number of attempts: 8

remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3537 entries

easy stuff

Best score: 9
Best player score: 11
Position: #920 / 1144
Number of attempts: 1

Word Blender - 146 entries

The insides of long words seem to have been run through the blender. Can you fix this famous tale, brave knight?

Best score: 28
Best player score: 34
Position: #20 / 55
Number of attempts: 15

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: 19
Position: #55 / 376
Number of attempts: 7

Every other line - 2886 entries

AaAaAaA

Best score: 12
Best player score: 13
Position: #188 / 700
Number of attempts: 5

Copy three lines - 2840 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #61 / 635
Number of attempts: 11

Extract argument from function - 2314 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 15
Position: #453 / 744
Number of attempts: 3

Start coding format - 147 entries

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

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #24 / 70
Number of attempts: 3

Search and Replace 0 - 4792 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 13
Position: #830 / 1585
Number of attempts: 4

That hyphen - 2556 entries

"vim vi improved"

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #154 / 695
Number of attempts: 9

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: #157 / 314
Number of attempts: 8

Just the middle - 11360 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #1113 / 4164
Number of attempts: 6

Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 19
Position: #434 / 581
Number of attempts: 2

Make HTML List - 1039 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

Best score: 33
Best player score: 34
Position: #29 / 271
Number of attempts: 13

Learn some german verbs - 531 entries

The list needs to be structured so we can print in verbatim and feel ok about how it looks.

Best score: 21
Best player score: 28
Position: #97 / 131
Number of attempts: 3

Interweave two blocks of text - 631 entries

Suppose you've got data on a list of things from multiple sources. They're all in separate chunks, so how might you create a tabular output?

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #30 / 211
Number of attempts: 13

Format java properties - 72 entries

Format java properties to a different format. The value which is the string following the first '=' cannot & should not change. All periods in the key get replaced with an underscore "_" and get a prefix of "b_".

Best score: 27
Best player score: 27
Position: #6 / 33
Number of attempts: 3

Basic renumbering - 5587 entries

Renumbering Basic.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #300 / 1258
Number of attempts: 13

Adam's challenge - 957 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: 18
Position: #99 / 266
Number of attempts: 10

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: #44 / 287
Number of attempts: 7

Add to end of each line... kinda - 325 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: 13
Position: #143 / 171
Number of attempts: 2

replace 2nd column blanks with values in same column if blank - 231 entries

Where ,SOMELOGB and ,SOMELOGC replaces each /r carriage return if 2nd column is blank. The replace only happens if 2nd column is blank though and should replace up to the non blank row.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #15 / 81
Number of attempts: 2

Vice versa - 7804 entries

Little role switching.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #266 / 2101
Number of attempts: 8

C Reformatting - 688 entries

You may use Visual mode... or not. #uppercase

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #8 / 161
Number of attempts: 10

Order and join - 956 entries

There's something special about the input order.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #81 / 255
Number of attempts: 12

Paragraph breaks - 505 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 11
Position: #71 / 165
Number of attempts: 2

comments galore - 998 entries

Basic comment reformatting

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #220 / 418
Number of attempts: 2

lipsum lines - 252 entries

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

Best score: 28
Best player score: 36
Position: #75 / 91
Number of attempts: 1

Scrambled numbers - 779 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 19
Position: #49 / 182
Number of attempts: 6

Alsa configuration - 491 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #42 / 125
Number of attempts: 10

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: 11
Position: #57 / 241
Number of attempts: 6

Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 639 entries

Change the middle part of the function name in multiple places, preferably using the next and dot commands.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #68 / 203
Number of attempts: 7

Line under headers - 2004 entries

Put a line under each header, and remove the other markdown formatting.

Best score: 24
Best player score: 24
Position: #17 / 496
Number of attempts: 7

Mirror Symmetry - 798 entries

Add backslashes.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #74 / 266
Number of attempts: 7

Swap assigned value - 624 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #108 / 249
Number of attempts: 6

From A to B - 564 entries

Mirror and change this text block

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #84 / 155
Number of attempts: 5

Collect List - 4264 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #300 / 1186
Number of attempts: 6

VimGolfNight - 536 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #291 / 343
Number of attempts: 2

camel riding - 769 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #136 / 274
Number of attempts: 3

Space out the alphabet - 1627 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #73 / 440
Number of attempts: 9

Fix the XML - 996 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 22
Position: #96 / 284
Number of attempts: 8

range(10) digit rotation - 32 entries

This is a data generator challenge or some kind of gift..

Best score: 18
Best player score: 21
Position: #18 / 20
Number of attempts: 1

I forgot quotes - 15931 entries

Oops.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #507 / 4161
Number of attempts: 27

-a-b-c- - 3176 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #204 / 1129
Number of attempts: 8

Count both ways - 1001 entries

Right AND down.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 16
Position: #263 / 351
Number of attempts: 3

Lisp Condense - 438 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 18
Position: #143 / 154
Number of attempts: 1

Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1120 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 18
Position: #154 / 293
Number of attempts: 14

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: 11
Position: #134 / 578
Number of attempts: 9

Mess in revision history - 1161 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #44 / 247
Number of attempts: 10

Going underground.... - 339 entries

Simple reformatting: in this case changing from the format London underground supplies its customers with, to the format that Google Calendar likes...

Best score: 22
Best player score: 59
Position: #122 / 125
Number of attempts: 3

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10624 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #1268 / 3666
Number of attempts: 5

Counting in binary - 477 entries

"a" represents 0; "A" represents 1. Start from zero and count to 15.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #23 / 113
Number of attempts: 30

Letter case trickery - 1594 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: #10 / 511
Number of attempts: 8

quotes inside quotes - 3125 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: #266 / 1072
Number of attempts: 5

Words in parens - 12858 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #756 / 3946
Number of attempts: 8

Harder than "abcd > a b c d" - 77 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: 24
Position: #26 / 40
Number of attempts: 2

lamb had a little Mary - 586 entries

"Mary" and "lamb" are swapped. Unswap them. Fast as you can.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #27 / 163
Number of attempts: 12

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1581 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: #249 / 439
Number of attempts: 9

Saving the hashes(#) - 1992 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: #109 / 473
Number of attempts: 8

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1091 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #140 / 441
Number of attempts: 5

Vertical Limit - 2440 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 21
Position: #58 / 737
Number of attempts: 9

Exchanging Quotes - 821 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #13 / 225
Number of attempts: 8

replacing each line of a block selection - 2947 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #93 / 768
Number of attempts: 10

Switch function arguments - 2082 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #190 / 652
Number of attempts: 6

Append semicolon after expressions - 1005 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #109 / 403
Number of attempts: 4

Reverse and double space - 489 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

Best score: 14
Best player score: 16
Position: #107 / 194
Number of attempts: 7

Remove noise from HTTP log - 695 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: #144 / 270
Number of attempts: 12

Remove semicolons after expressions - 628 entries

A follow-up for http://vimgolf.com/challenges/4fc9d767d3a0d4000100000e.

Best score: 6
Best player score: 7
Position: #143 / 258
Number of attempts: 7

switch variable - 5036 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #466 / 1736
Number of attempts: 6

The meaning - 558 entries

Numbers are fun!

Best score: 5
Best player score: 5
Position: #318 / 356
Number of attempts: 2

Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 973 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 20
Position: #31 / 185
Number of attempts: 19

Make it more readable - 1952 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 18
Position: #530 / 640
Number of attempts: 1

remove dupes from array - 1336 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: 18
Position: #100 / 331
Number of attempts: 11

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1221 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: #80 / 401
Number of attempts: 10

Assignment Alignment - 832 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 25
Position: #119 / 215
Number of attempts: 8

Shebangs for all - 1912 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: #71 / 500
Number of attempts: 11

Sort and add attributes - 1327 entries

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

Best score: 33
Best player score: 33
Position: #264 / 529
Number of attempts: 4

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1369 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: #100 / 384
Number of attempts: 6

Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3339 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #112 / 736
Number of attempts: 12

Simple text editing with Vim - 12290 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #534 / 3581
Number of attempts: 11

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6560 entries

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

Best score: 32
Best player score: 33
Position: #261 / 1616
Number of attempts: 10