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 - 33584 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: 31
  • Position: #5586 / 7407
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap values - 4610 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #1159 / 1267
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18710 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 40
  • Position: #3787 / 3857
  • Number of attempts: 2
V to the i - 4798 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #1710 / 1891
  • Number of attempts: 3
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2869 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #657 / 847
  • Number of attempts: 3
Add semicolons - 10846 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #2550 / 3060
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3790 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #770 / 857
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1519 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: 41
  • Position: #363 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2910 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #635 / 703
  • Number of attempts: 1
Copy three lines - 2872 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #573 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 2
Search and Replace 0 - 4970 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1220 / 1618
  • Number of attempts: 2
Number Sort - 314 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: 12
  • Position: #162 / 166
  • Number of attempts: 2
comment and uncomment code inline - 1118 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: 27
  • Position: #317 / 321
  • Number of attempts: 2
Flip the bit - 130 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #72 / 74
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11423 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #3936 / 4185
  • Number of attempts: 3
Make HTML List - 1050 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 62
  • Position: #261 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 1
Un"finnish"ed Work - 116 entries

Replace å by a, ä by a and ö by o.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #49 / 60
  • Number of attempts: 1
Basic renumbering - 5645 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #927 / 1263
  • Number of attempts: 1
Add to end of each line... kinda - 333 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: 15
  • Position: #168 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fun With The Diagonal - 107 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #58 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 1
Free hyphen! - 169 entries

Just like "Inner hyphens", but I'm giving you a free hyphen to play with. Will your solution be any different?

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #19 / 89
  • Number of attempts: 2
Order and join - 983 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #222 / 259
  • Number of attempts: 1
comments galore - 1041 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #410 / 423
  • Number of attempts: 1
convert yml into java pojo field - 857 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: 41
  • Position: #217 / 227
  • Number of attempts: 1
Mirror Symmetry - 822 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #249 / 269
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1069 / 1190
  • Number of attempts: 4
VimGolfNight - 555 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #338 / 345
  • Number of attempts: 2
Not enough Ps - 67 entries

Different type of code

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #35 / 36
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 15967 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #3884 / 4174
  • Number of attempts: 1
learn vim in short time - 240 entries

so happy to learn vim.because vim is awesome

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #105 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 2
vim1001 - 307 entries

change number 1001 into a "vim1001 sequence". (My first challenge, hope it is not too bad... )

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #100 / 110
  • Number of attempts: 2
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #849 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change name of a variable - 179 entries

Replace the name of the $variable with the fastest move possible. The challenge is having a command that allow you to easily change the variable name even if its indented.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #107 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 2
Where should I put the Newline? - 881 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #392 / 437
  • Number of attempts: 1
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10657 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #2826 / 3679
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letter case trickery - 1621 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: 17
  • Position: #476 / 516
  • Number of attempts: 1
quotes inside quotes - 3154 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: #916 / 1075
  • Number of attempts: 1
abcd > a b c d - 290 entries

transform the single spaces into 4 spaces repeat for each line

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #170 / 221
  • Number of attempts: 1
lamb had a little Mary - 598 entries

"Mary" and "lamb" are swapped. Unswap them. Fast as you can.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 42
  • Position: #141 / 165
  • Number of attempts: 2
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1606 entries

Oh no, this line is longer than 80 chars... put each 'vim' on a new line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #378 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2538 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #553 / 754
  • Number of attempts: 2
replacing each line of a block selection - 2996 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #661 / 775
  • Number of attempts: 2
Append semicolon after expressions - 1046 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #410 / 413
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse and double space - 499 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #194 / 198
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove semicolons after expressions - 648 entries

A follow-up for http://vimgolf.com/challenges/4fc9d767d3a0d4000100000e.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #250 / 262
  • Number of attempts: 2
The meaning - 574 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #280 / 362
  • Number of attempts: 1
Replacing some words - 425 entries

How fast could it be?

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 40
  • Position: #137 / 150
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 1986 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #536 / 646
  • Number of attempts: 2
The holy-grail may help - 362 entries

Can you find it in less than 20 strokes, Arthur?

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #183 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 3
Shebangs for all - 1982 entries

We've all seen or used a shebang once or twice. Ditch the specific paths and leave just a dynamic Ruby and Python bath behind.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #486 / 510
  • Number of attempts: 2
A Simple One - 1043 entries

Here is a very simple one - just to illustrate/introduce a vim feature that some people seem to miss...

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #477 / 659
  • Number of attempts: 1
82 bottles of beer on the wall - 310 entries

Take them down. (sorry, only 82 bottles because the problem size is limited!)

  • Best score: 106
  • Best player score: 174
  • Position: #130 / 144
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse Simple Deletion - 845 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #436 / 457
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 677 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #345 / 405
  • Number of attempts: 2
Indentation - 534 entries

Indent each line according to the right number of spaces it needs.

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 42
  • Position: #156 / 177
  • Number of attempts: 1
Context insensitive completion 0 - 558 entries

Buried in the lines you're not supposed to add is the line "Add this line!" Add that line to the top of the file.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #203 / 242
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 12680 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #3337 / 3665
  • Number of attempts: 1
Brent Woo
Twitter:

Linguistics PhD student at UW: idioms, coordination, experimental syntax, Slavic. he/him

entered into 57 challenges

contributed 0 challenges