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

Rural Post - 4572 entries

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

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #688 / 1116
  • Number of attempts: 4
Satisfy the go linter - 2468 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: 27
  • Position: #320 / 491
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 1030 entries

You created an ansible playbook, but forgot to add quotes. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #274 / 325
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple, Practical, and Common - 33866 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: 26
  • Position: #3665 / 7474
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values - 4661 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1138 / 1282
  • Number of attempts: 3
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6366 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1064 / 1555
  • Number of attempts: 3
One number per line - 18831 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #3029 / 3889
  • Number of attempts: 7
Swap values inside brackets - 2523 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #515 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 5
V to the i - 4830 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1331 / 1903
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2915 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #564 / 863
  • Number of attempts: 5
Swap the operands under comparison - 313 entries

Swap the operands under comparison to prevent null pointer exception (at least in java)

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #82 / 105
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10916 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2383 / 3085
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split line with dots - 2156 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #623 / 636
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3622 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #878 / 1177
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3941 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #637 / 892
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7962 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #651 / 1891
  • Number of attempts: 4
multiple cursor alternative - 1547 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: 37
  • Position: #363 / 385
  • Number of attempts: 3
From argument to object - 1536 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: 20
  • Position: #346 / 466
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2925 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #651 / 707
  • Number of attempts: 1
Copy three lines - 2882 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #466 / 642
  • Number of attempts: 5
Extract argument from function - 2376 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #753 / 759
  • Number of attempts: 1
Search and Replace 0 - 5027 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1401 / 1637
  • Number of attempts: 1
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 549 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #123 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2602 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #535 / 704
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 14
  • Position: #296 / 328
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11541 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #3590 / 4230
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1848 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #493 / 592
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make HTML List - 1061 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 57
  • Position: #253 / 274
  • Number of attempts: 1
Learn some german verbs - 541 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: 37
  • Position: #119 / 134
  • Number of attempts: 5
Basic renumbering - 5699 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #707 / 1273
  • Number of attempts: 2
Adam's challenge - 1009 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: 30
  • Position: #267 / 276
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7974 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1780 / 2146
  • Number of attempts: 3
Order and join - 992 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #225 / 261
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1073 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #265 / 429
  • Number of attempts: 4
Scrambled numbers - 814 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #171 / 185
  • Number of attempts: 2
Align commas - 1097 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: 26
  • Position: #236 / 247
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 672 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: 22
  • Position: #199 / 210
  • Number of attempts: 2
Array transposition - 2436 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #385 / 452
  • Number of attempts: 2
convert yml into java pojo field - 867 entries

How fast vim can create fields for java pojo i.e class declaration referring to a (simple) yml file

  • Best score: 29
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #195 / 230
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4317 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #854 / 1194
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1659 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #365 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fix the XML - 1039 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 51
  • Position: #286 / 290
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 16093 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3324 / 4202
  • Number of attempts: 3
-a-b-c- - 3225 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1011 / 1140
  • Number of attempts: 1
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #350 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 1
Don't know what this is - 2025 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: 14
  • Position: #368 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10713 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #3190 / 3700
  • Number of attempts: 2
attr_aligner - 3525 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #446 / 706
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 15
  • Position: #451 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 4
quotes inside quotes - 3185 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: 17
  • Position: #924 / 1086
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12992 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #3316 / 3977
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 202 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 68
  • Position: #54 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2596 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #608 / 767
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 3007 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #520 / 780
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2182 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #518 / 674
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5094 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1531 / 1754
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 2009 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #411 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1940 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #576 / 656
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 13262 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #2903 / 3810
  • Number of attempts: 5
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7389 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 59
  • Position: #1634 / 1825
  • Number of attempts: 2
Luis Rodriguez
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entered into 60 challenges

contributed 0 challenges