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 - 4368 entries

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

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #655 / 1072
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 27
  • Position: #302 / 457
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 930 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #257 / 296
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 26
  • Position: #3619 / 7364
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values - 4543 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1117 / 1257
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 16
  • Position: #1039 / 1517
  • Number of attempts: 3
One number per line - 18616 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #3002 / 3842
  • Number of attempts: 7
Swap values inside brackets - 2464 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #500 / 569
  • Number of attempts: 5
V to the i - 4751 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1320 / 1879
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2845 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #547 / 840
  • Number of attempts: 5
Swap the operands under comparison - 270 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #76 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10792 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2349 / 3044
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split line with dots - 2125 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #617 / 630
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3537 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #850 / 1144
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3675 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #592 / 827
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7828 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #647 / 1865
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 37
  • Position: #354 / 376
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 20
  • Position: #334 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2886 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #645 / 700
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 21
  • Position: #462 / 635
  • 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: 26
  • Position: #739 / 744
  • Number of attempts: 1
Search and Replace 0 - 4792 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1354 / 1585
  • Number of attempts: 1
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 538 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: #118 / 127
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2556 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #531 / 695
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 14
  • Position: #283 / 314
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11360 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #3543 / 4164
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #485 / 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: 57
  • Position: #250 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 37
  • Position: #117 / 131
  • Number of attempts: 5
Basic renumbering - 5587 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #695 / 1258
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 30
  • Position: #257 / 266
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7805 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1747 / 2101
  • Number of attempts: 3
Order and join - 956 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #220 / 255
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 998 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #265 / 418
  • Number of attempts: 4
Scrambled numbers - 779 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #168 / 182
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 26
  • Position: #231 / 241
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 22
  • Position: #192 / 203
  • Number of attempts: 2
Array transposition - 2378 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #379 / 443
  • Number of attempts: 2
convert yml into java pojo field - 829 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: #188 / 223
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4264 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #848 / 1186
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1627 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #362 / 440
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fix the XML - 996 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 51
  • Position: #280 / 284
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 15931 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3297 / 4161
  • Number of attempts: 3
-a-b-c- - 3176 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1003 / 1129
  • Number of attempts: 1
Count both ways - 1001 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #347 / 351
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 14
  • Position: #364 / 578
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10628 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #3162 / 3667
  • Number of attempts: 2
attr_aligner - 3444 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #439 / 692
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 15
  • Position: #443 / 511
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 17
  • Position: #918 / 1072
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12858 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #3291 / 3946
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 177 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 68
  • Position: #50 / 53
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2448 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #588 / 738
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 2947 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #514 / 768
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2082 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #502 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5036 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1519 / 1736
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 1952 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #404 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1859 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #563 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 20
  • Position: #2739 / 3581
  • Number of attempts: 5
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6560 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 59
  • Position: #1483 / 1616
  • Number of attempts: 2
Luis Rodriguez
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entered into 60 challenges

contributed 0 challenges