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

Simple, Practical, and Common - 34033 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: #1174 / 7519
  • Number of attempts: 10
Swap values - 4707 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #199 / 1294
  • Number of attempts: 6
One number per line - 18909 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #347 / 3906
  • Number of attempts: 9
V to the i - 4887 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #532 / 1916
  • Number of attempts: 7
Split line with dots - 2175 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #127 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 3
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3658 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #97 / 1187
  • Number of attempts: 2
Box it - 8003 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #64 / 1901
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1592 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: 22
  • Position: #234 / 388
  • Number of attempts: 5
From argument to object - 1566 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: #68 / 471
  • Number of attempts: 7
Every other line - 2951 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #2 / 712
  • Number of attempts: 8
Array propagate - 354 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 90
  • Position: #124 / 125
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2649 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #170 / 712
  • Number of attempts: 3
comment and uncomment code inline - 1182 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: #80 / 332
  • Number of attempts: 5
Flip the bit - 144 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #12 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 3
Just the middle - 11630 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2583 / 4261
  • Number of attempts: 5
Learn some german verbs - 553 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: 29
  • Position: #105 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 279 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #6 / 149
  • Number of attempts: 5
Stairstep digits - 426 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #34 / 154
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5737 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 66
  • Position: #1280 / 1281
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple addition - 351 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: #37 / 128
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 886 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: #100 / 297
  • Number of attempts: 5
Vice versa - 8021 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #329 / 2158
  • Number of attempts: 8
comments galore - 1101 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #239 / 433
  • Number of attempts: 7
One to Ten - 2260 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: #20 / 689
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 691 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: 16
  • Position: #148 / 214
  • Number of attempts: 3
Increment each number - 1067 entries

Increment each number individually by one

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #65 / 260
  • Number of attempts: 3
Delete to the end of the current line - 899 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #65 / 433
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4342 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #343 / 1200
  • Number of attempts: 5
Space out the alphabet - 1699 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #80 / 459
  • Number of attempts: 7
I forgot quotes - 16240 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #829 / 4226
  • Number of attempts: 8
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1208 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #65 / 310
  • Number of attempts: 12
Don't know what this is - 2070 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: #90 / 596
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10758 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1211 / 3717
  • Number of attempts: 5
Letter case trickery - 1688 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: #16 / 526
  • Number of attempts: 6
quotes inside quotes - 3203 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: #283 / 1094
  • Number of attempts: 8
Words in parens - 13058 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #861 / 3993
  • Number of attempts: 3
replacing each line of a block selection - 3069 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #648 / 790
  • Number of attempts: 1
Switch function arguments - 2237 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #436 / 687
  • Number of attempts: 3
switch variable - 5131 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #941 / 1766
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1046 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #6 / 199
  • Number of attempts: 18
Generate English Alphabets - 540 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #6 / 216
  • Number of attempts: 9
The Cake is a Lie - 1419 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #240 / 544
  • Number of attempts: 4
Fix the Haiku - 332 entries

Change this slightly scrambled haiku to its unscrambled form and fix the capitalisation and punctuation along the way.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #97 / 117
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple text editing with Vim - 13667 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2394 / 3914
  • Number of attempts: 1
Dominic Z
Twitter:

Casual gamer, plays minecraft & LoL

entered into 44 challenges

contributed 0 challenges