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 - 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: #1194 / 7364
  • Number of attempts: 8
Swap values - 4543 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #202 / 1257
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 18616 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #359 / 3842
  • Number of attempts: 7
V to the i - 4751 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #537 / 1879
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2125 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #129 / 630
  • 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: 19
  • Position: #42 / 376
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: #70 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 6
Every other line - 2886 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #1 / 700
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: #82 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 11
Array propagate - 319 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #2 / 115
  • Number of attempts: 5
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: 13
  • Position: #194 / 744
  • Number of attempts: 6
Search and Replace 0 - 4790 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #508 / 1585
  • Number of attempts: 5
That hyphen - 2556 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #173 / 695
  • Number of attempts: 5
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: #79 / 314
  • Number of attempts: 5
Just the middle - 11360 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #1033 / 4164
  • Number of attempts: 4
Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #67 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make HTML List - 1039 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #5 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: 37
  • Position: #59 / 176
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 257 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #13 / 138
  • Number of attempts: 2
Stairstep digits - 376 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #33 / 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: 15
  • Position: #15 / 209
  • Number of attempts: 5
Basic renumbering - 5587 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #93 / 1258
  • Number of attempts: 9
Simple addition - 310 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: #38 / 117
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: #47 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: #53 / 266
  • Number of attempts: 6
Create a table - 325 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #28 / 104
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: #102 / 287
  • Number of attempts: 2
Nesting SASS - 261 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #36 / 93
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vice versa - 7803 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #335 / 2100
  • Number of attempts: 7
C Reformatting - 688 entries

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

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #13 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 14
Order and join - 956 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #44 / 255
  • Number of attempts: 5
Paragraph breaks - 505 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #31 / 165
  • Number of attempts: 4
comments galore - 998 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #241 / 418
  • Number of attempts: 6
Scrambled numbers - 779 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #32 / 182
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: #64 / 241
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hello ${world} - 299 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #22 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hail to Alekseï Pajitnov - 33 entries

Wanna play tetris? Don't panic, it's quite long but there's no piece rotation. Little advice: source the file, Luke!

  • Best score: 51
  • Best player score: 74
  • Position: #12 / 13
  • Number of attempts: 1
Array transposition - 2378 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #93 / 443
  • Number of attempts: 9
Mirror Symmetry - 798 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #79 / 266
  • Number of attempts: 5
From A to B - 564 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #44 / 155
  • Number of attempts: 6
Collect List - 4264 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #345 / 1186
  • Number of attempts: 2
camel riding - 769 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #61 / 274
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1627 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #81 / 440
  • Number of attempts: 6
Fix the XML - 996 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #48 / 284
  • Number of attempts: 8
I forgot quotes - 15931 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #674 / 4161
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3176 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #219 / 1129
  • Number of attempts: 6
Count both ways - 1001 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #45 / 351
  • Number of attempts: 6
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1120 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #64 / 293
  • Number of attempts: 8
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: #91 / 578
  • Number of attempts: 4
Mess in revision history - 1160 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #49 / 246
  • Number of attempts: 10
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10624 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1213 / 3666
  • Number of attempts: 3
attr_aligner - 3444 entries

Two attr keywords. Two separate indentations. Align the colons.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #141 / 692
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: #17 / 511
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: #285 / 1072
  • Number of attempts: 3
Words in parens - 12854 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #842 / 3945
  • Number of attempts: 5
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: 8
  • Position: #94 / 439
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: 20
  • Position: #53 / 473
  • Number of attempts: 9
Recursively Palindrome - 239 entries

Note that there are 2^6-1 characters.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #1 / 73
  • Number of attempts: 7
Vertical Limit - 2437 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #67 / 736
  • Number of attempts: 7
replacing each line of a block selection - 2946 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #101 / 767
  • Number of attempts: 9
Switch function arguments - 2078 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #147 / 651
  • Number of attempts: 5
switch variable - 5031 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #493 / 1735
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make it more readable - 1952 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #87 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 6
Happy New Year! - 143 entries

This is a simple new year's challenge.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #5 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 3
Generate English Alphabets - 472 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #7 / 202
  • Number of attempts: 4
Numbering a List - 1859 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #27 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 2
Solve the Sokoban - 164 entries

A wink for all Vimgolfers that play Nethack too.

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #6 / 72
  • Number of attempts: 8
Reverse Simple Deletion - 832 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #39 / 454
  • Number of attempts: 4
Compile C - 365 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #16 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 6
Deleting folded text - 341 entries

The text below contains three folds. Delete them (and the text inside them). For example: 123 456 /*{{{*/ 789 /*}}}*/ 012 Should become: 123 012 Also, add `aoeuaoeu` to make sure small solutions don't get flagged as cheating.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #4 / 113
  • 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: 16
  • Position: #11 / 736
  • Number of attempts: 8
Simple text editing with Vim - 12281 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #510 / 3580
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6557 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #159 / 1614
  • Number of attempts: 10
ParasamGateZero
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entered into 73 challenges

contributed 0 challenges