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

HS exam question - 1589 entries

Convert the data to a python dictionary

  • Best score: 47
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #6 / 417
  • Number of attempts: 14
Reformat symbols in list - 1625 entries

Saw this in some lecture, easy reformatting using multiple cursor in VS Code

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #17 / 349
  • Number of attempts: 10
2 quick changes and a numbered list - 647 entries

The ascii will not be lost, but rather numbered in 4 digit blocks with leading zeros.

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #14 / 154
  • Number of attempts: 13
delete swap - 1788 entries

delete all swap

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #124 / 557
  • Number of attempts: 3
Generate a very basic Python constructor (fixed) - 1253 entries

Original by @BiddulphCaleb (http://www.vimgolf.com/challenges/6019f1c4642668000cee11e8) - had some extra spaces in output file.

  • Best score: 29
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #35 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 8
Fix the shell script! - 2596 entries

Fix the shell script with the fewest keystrokes!

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #94 / 603
  • Number of attempts: 7
Visual block training - 1075 entries

You see the input. You see the output. Go.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #29 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 12
hello-world-vimgolf - 2501 entries

Simple number generation

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #220 / 709
  • Number of attempts: 9
Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 799 entries

You're replying to an email with silly long lines. Clean them up.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #46 / 421
  • Number of attempts: 1
Search and Replace 0 - 5004 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1096 / 1630
  • Number of attempts: 2
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1000 entries

A novice Python using prints Hello World! and a pro shows him different way. Using vim to get into pro style from novice, win the challenge.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #146 / 382
  • Number of attempts: 4
formatted text to markdown - 184 entries

You're converting some posts from an old blog to markdown. The formatted text is far closer to the finished product than the html markup, so it seems like a good place to start. Word wrapping seems to be the main area for optimization.

  • Best score: 70
  • Best player score: 77
  • Position: #29 / 67
  • Number of attempts: 1
imports alignment (python) - 700 entries

Align as one import per line.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #136 / 198
  • Number of attempts: 2
Before there was Farmville... - 101 entries

There was old MacDonald. For my toddler. The first Vim sing-a-long?

  • Best score: 156
  • Best player score: 239
  • Position: #37 / 49
  • Number of attempts: 4
HTML to Haml - 881 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #69 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 6
expand a list comprehension (python) - 334 entries

Please show your way to convert a list comprehension in python to an ordinary for-loop expression!

  • Best score: 42
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #40 / 110
  • Number of attempts: 1
Generate English Alphabets - 487 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #92 / 206
  • Number of attempts: 2
Numbering a List - 1935 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #285 / 654
  • Number of attempts: 2
Getters & Setters: Java - 211 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: 132
  • Position: #43 / 59
  • Number of attempts: 4
Java Array2List - 233 entries

Convert an java array initializer into a list.

  • Best score: 67
  • Best player score: 89
  • Position: #31 / 87
  • Number of attempts: 4
The holy-grail may help - 377 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #70 / 212
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1249 entries

Rubyists talk about being cutting edge but how many are using 1.9 in production? Time to convert those verbose 1.8 hashes in to symbolic, succinct 1.9 beauties!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #17 / 407
  • Number of attempts: 6
Assignment Alignment - 885 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #172 / 221
  • Number of attempts: 2
Shebangs for all - 2018 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: 12
  • Position: #100 / 519
  • Number of attempts: 6
A Simple One - 1057 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: #162 / 667
  • Number of attempts: 1
Table Reshuffle - 439 entries

Fix the column order in this table... also append the new 'username' column.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #58 / 142
  • Number of attempts: 6
Reverse and count - 480 entries

Someone typed things upside down and now a Vim ninja needs to reverse the lines and count how many there are.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #64 / 178
  • Number of attempts: 5
Ruby 1.9 compat - 634 entries

Remember when Ruby supported `when <expr> :`? Well, it doesn't in 1.9, so let's make sure we use `then`, without ruining our lovely new hash syntax!

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #97 / 235
  • Number of attempts: 4
Reverse Simple Deletion - 854 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #448 / 460
  • Number of attempts: 3
Increment, increment, increment.... - 692 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #188 / 410
  • Number of attempts: 2
Turn this csv list into queries - 252 entries

Transform each line of this csv file into a MySQL-ready INSERT query.

  • Best score: 98
  • Best player score: 119
  • Position: #48 / 101
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Cake is a Lie - 1365 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #323 / 532
  • Number of attempts: 4
Fix the Haiku - 313 entries

Change this slightly scrambled haiku to its unscrambled form and fix the capitalisation and punctuation along the way.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #99 / 114
  • Number of attempts: 2
Context insensitive completion 0 - 585 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: #188 / 248
  • Number of attempts: 2
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 506 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #56 / 247
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reformat some Python - 622 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #84 / 238
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reformat a C golf submission - 612 entries

Take this C golf submission (for the "tiny but standards-compliant Hello World program" category, naturally), and turn it into formatted C code.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #57 / 209
  • Number of attempts: 5
Reverse characters in a line - 776 entries

You have everything you need, just not in the right order. Mastermind would give you 26 white pegs.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #153 / 267
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change the content of a string - 1593 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #254 / 594
  • Number of attempts: 3
Add fold markers to a .c file - 660 entries

Fold markers can make it easier to navigate source code. Add them to this .c file.

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 51
  • Position: #173 / 189
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reconstruct the Sentence - 1589 entries

Get the sentence back in the proper order, remove duplicate lines, and then combine the separate lines into one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #364 / 425
  • Number of attempts: 1
Braces or Brackets? - 1054 entries

Someone forgot whether to use braces or brackets and you have to clean up their code!

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 48
  • Position: #197 / 324
  • Number of attempts: 1
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3744 entries

Convert tabs to spaces, strip empty lines and trailing whitespace.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #275 / 804
  • Number of attempts: 5
Simple text editing with Vim - 12996 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #2365 / 3739
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7157 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #601 / 1755
  • Number of attempts: 3

Contributed Challenges

Rotating Philosophers Problem - 410 entries

Can you help the philosophers find a good place to sit before they get five forks and spaghetti?

Eivind Jahren
Twitter:

entered into 45 challenges

contributed 1 challenges