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 - 33757 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: #965 / 7450
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap values - 4644 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #171 / 1275
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 18780 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #251 / 3877
  • Number of attempts: 8
Separate the lines - 191 entries

Every other line is mixed up. Separate them into their original texts.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #68 / 95
  • Number of attempts: 2
V to the i - 4824 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #500 / 1899
  • Number of attempts: 3
From argument to object - 1524 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: #32 / 463
  • Number of attempts: 3
Every other line - 2922 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #199 / 706
  • Number of attempts: 5
Copy three lines - 2875 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #68 / 641
  • Number of attempts: 7
Extract argument from function - 2369 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #189 / 756
  • Number of attempts: 3
Search and Replace 0 - 5007 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #492 / 1631
  • Number of attempts: 5
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #159 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 5
comment and uncomment code inline - 1151 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: #46 / 328
  • Number of attempts: 3
Just the middle - 11497 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #924 / 4215
  • Number of attempts: 2
Todo list specification - 401 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: #6 / 180
  • Number of attempts: 1
Text to HTML Table - 183 entries

Turn the plain text table to an HTML table.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 52
  • Position: #11 / 54
  • Number of attempts: 3
For all cases. - 168 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #38 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 1
Stairstep digits - 407 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #23 / 149
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 913 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: 115
  • Position: #218 / 218
  • Number of attempts: 1
Basic renumbering - 5685 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #72 / 1270
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple addition - 332 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: #14 / 124
  • Number of attempts: 1
create arrows in a list - 128 entries

Add arrow at same distance

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #38 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 1
Adam's challenge - 1008 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: #33 / 275
  • Number of attempts: 4
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 873 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: #81 / 294
  • Number of attempts: 5
Vice versa - 7967 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #291 / 2144
  • Number of attempts: 5
Add Go XML to structure tags - 182 entries

The Go programming language can directly map XML to structure fields. Add the correct XML tag after each field.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #52 / 73
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4308 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #311 / 1192
  • Number of attempts: 1
Interleave lines - 185 entries

This is some kind of « paste -d'\n' c b a ». There are many ways to achieve this.. just find the shortest!

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #6 / 60
  • Number of attempts: 7
Space out the alphabet - 1659 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #75 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 8
I forgot quotes - 16051 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #594 / 4194
  • Number of attempts: 6
-a-b-c- - 3216 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #211 / 1138
  • Number of attempts: 5
Don't know what this is - 2024 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: #86 / 586
  • Number of attempts: 7
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10699 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1143 / 3695
  • Number of attempts: 2
Letter case trickery - 1644 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: #13 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 3
quotes inside quotes - 3182 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: #273 / 1085
  • Number of attempts: 5
Words in parens - 12969 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #797 / 3970
  • Number of attempts: 4
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1616 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #90 / 447
  • Number of attempts: 6
Saving the hashes(#) - 2063 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: 20
  • Position: #50 / 480
  • Number of attempts: 7
Vertical Limit - 2564 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #61 / 759
  • Number of attempts: 3
replacing each line of a block selection - 3005 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #95 / 779
  • Number of attempts: 4
Switch function arguments - 2152 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #141 / 667
  • Number of attempts: 3
switch variable - 5085 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #474 / 1750
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make it more readable - 2009 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #84 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 4
Line Zipper - 477 entries

Zip/pair related lines.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #86 / 216
  • Number of attempts: 2
remove dupes from array - 1358 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: 17
  • Position: #70 / 336
  • Number of attempts: 7
Numbering a List - 1939 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #21 / 655
  • Number of attempts: 1
Shebangs for all - 2039 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: #45 / 521
  • Number of attempts: 7
The Cake is a Lie - 1374 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #234 / 534
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change the content of a string - 1646 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #168 / 607
  • Number of attempts: 1
Sort and add attributes - 1499 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #204 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 1
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3793 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #10 / 814
  • Number of attempts: 7
Simple text editing with Vim - 13092 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #485 / 3765
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7229 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #473 / 1778
  • Number of attempts: 2

Contributed Challenges

Hidden Message - 93 entries

Find the hidden message and replace all other characters with spaces.

Missing Library and a Typo - 913 entries

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

Todo list specification - 401 entries

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

Separate the lines - 191 entries

Every other line is mixed up. Separate them into their original texts.

Bennett Bernardoni
Twitter:

entered into 52 challenges

contributed 4 challenges