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 - 33483 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: #3578 / 7384
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values - 4554 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #750 / 1259
  • Number of attempts: 4
One number per line - 18673 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #1801 / 3852
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap values inside brackets - 2477 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #171 / 573
  • Number of attempts: 6
V to the i - 4771 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1349 / 1887
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2851 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #353 / 843
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap the operands under comparison - 274 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #55 / 99
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2131 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #304 / 633
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3556 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #562 / 1151
  • Number of attempts: 3
Com(m)a Trouble - 3711 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #455 / 839
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1488 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: 21
  • Position: #216 / 378
  • Number of attempts: 8
Every other line - 2902 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #351 / 702
  • Number of attempts: 8
Copy three lines - 2869 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #335 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 9
Array propagate - 332 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #50 / 117
  • Number of attempts: 5
Extract argument from function - 2337 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #461 / 750
  • Number of attempts: 3
Search and Replace 0 - 4853 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #556 / 1605
  • Number of attempts: 3
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 539 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: 35
  • Position: #62 / 128
  • Number of attempts: 3
Number Sort - 307 entries

sort the list of newline-separated numbers incrementally. Numbers are in the range 1 to 1000, with 500 missing

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #99 / 165
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2572 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #253 / 698
  • Number of attempts: 14
comment and uncomment code inline - 1074 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: 10
  • Position: #192 / 316
  • Number of attempts: 4
Just the middle - 11380 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2657 / 4174
  • Number of attempts: 1
Team names - 1812 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #384 / 585
  • Number of attempts: 3
Learn some german verbs - 532 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: 32
  • Position: #115 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 6
Missing Library and a Typo - 860 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: 16
  • Position: #81 / 211
  • Number of attempts: 6
Basic renumbering - 5605 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #154 / 1260
  • Number of attempts: 2
Adam's challenge - 958 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: 22
  • Position: #190 / 267
  • Number of attempts: 6
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 841 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: #125 / 288
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add to end of each line... kinda - 329 entries

Visual-block mode can be used to add something to the end of each line, even if they are of differing lengths. However, what if it's not quite at the end?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #149 / 173
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7865 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1363 / 2114
  • Number of attempts: 3
Order and join - 965 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #170 / 258
  • Number of attempts: 4
comments galore - 1017 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #272 / 421
  • Number of attempts: 4
Scrambled numbers - 780 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #101 / 183
  • Number of attempts: 8
Align commas - 1063 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: 16
  • Position: #141 / 243
  • Number of attempts: 6
Python challenge - 148 entries

Change the types of the variables in the list from str to float, while keeping the truncation.

  • Best score: 31
  • Best player score: 41
  • Position: #22 / 45
  • Number of attempts: 6
One to Ten - 2174 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: #44 / 664
  • Number of attempts: 6
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 648 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: 15
  • Position: #93 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 4
Build a six - 277 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #13 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 2
Increment each number - 995 entries

Increment each number individually by one

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #123 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 8
Delete to the end of the current line - 795 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #82 / 387
  • Number of attempts: 2
Put the months in order - 972 entries

Our contractor thought that months should be in alphabetical order. Put them in calendar order please.

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #68 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 10
move titles next to url, in quotes - 510 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #80 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array transposition - 2407 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #256 / 445
  • Number of attempts: 11
unknown command - 166 entries

I want change 5 words

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #39 / 86
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple format (2) - 335 entries

try again!

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #36 / 70
  • Number of attempts: 6
Collect List - 4267 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #598 / 1188
  • Number of attempts: 6
Space out the alphabet - 1630 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #268 / 442
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 15946 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #2966 / 4166
  • Number of attempts: 1
-a-b-c- - 3183 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #696 / 1132
  • Number of attempts: 4
Don't know what this is - 1996 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: 16
  • Position: #531 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 4
attr_aligner - 3454 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #245 / 695
  • Number of attempts: 5
quotes inside quotes - 3128 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: #308 / 1073
  • Number of attempts: 2
Words in parens - 12868 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #2972 / 3950
  • Number of attempts: 5
Santa's naughty / nice list - 79 entries

Christmas is here and Santa hasn't decided who's naughty or nice yet. He's given a list of names to his programmer friend to quickly split the children into naughty and nice. Hint: There's a hidden pattern that might be familiar.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 57
  • Position: #20 / 25
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 178 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #33 / 54
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vertical Limit - 2487 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #169 / 748
  • Number of attempts: 9
replacing each line of a block selection - 2966 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #281 / 772
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2085 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #308 / 653
  • Number of attempts: 4
switch variable - 5045 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #540 / 1742
  • Number of attempts: 4
Getters & Setters: Java - 206 entries

Boilerplate getters & setters - it's a tedious fact of life in Java, and probably the only thing that still pulls me back to an IDE. Perhaps someone knows a fast, pure vim way...

  • Best score: 89
  • Best player score: 119
  • Position: #30 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 12
Simple text editing with Vim - 12491 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1715 / 3626
  • Number of attempts: 5
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6749 entries

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

  • Best score: 31
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #738 / 1652
  • Number of attempts: 3
Mateen Ulhaq
Twitter:

entered into 61 challenges

contributed 0 challenges