VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33929 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: 22
Position: #1722 / 7489
Number of attempts: 5

Swap values - 4667 entries

Well, swap the values...

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #264 / 1284
Number of attempts: 5

One number per line - 18840 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #508 / 3893
Number of attempts: 8

Swap values inside brackets - 2539 entries

Easy challenge.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #29 / 590
Number of attempts: 6

V to the i - 4833 entries

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

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #642 / 1904
Number of attempts: 2

Applying same text modification in several lines - 2920 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 13
Position: #133 / 864
Number of attempts: 3

Swap the operands under comparison - 318 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #16 / 106
Number of attempts: 5

Split line with dots - 2156 entries

This line is too long, split it.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 21
Position: #437 / 636
Number of attempts: 2

remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3631 entries

easy stuff

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #600 / 1179
Number of attempts: 3

Com(m)a Trouble - 3968 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #29 / 901
Number of attempts: 11

Box it - 7987 entries

Create a box around a line.

Best score: 21
Best player score: 23
Position: #606 / 1895
Number of attempts: 6

Triangular Numbers - 110 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #10 / 30
Number of attempts: 4

Cool or not? - 852 entries

abc trying to be cool or not...

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 234
Number of attempts: 6

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: 19
Position: #68 / 385
Number of attempts: 10

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: 17
Position: #107 / 466
Number of attempts: 3

Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 767 entries

Clean and group.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #16 / 180
Number of attempts: 10

Every other line - 2925 entries

AaAaAaA

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #34 / 707
Number of attempts: 6

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: 13
Position: #121 / 642
Number of attempts: 7

Convert Application Output to CSV - 214 entries

Change the application output to comma-separated values

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #17 / 57
Number of attempts: 3

Array propagate - 344 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

Best score: 23
Best player score: 24
Position: #42 / 122
Number of attempts: 6

Extract argument from function - 2379 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #374 / 760
Number of attempts: 3

Search and Replace 0 - 5042 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #569 / 1643
Number of attempts: 3

Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 557 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: 30
Position: #8 / 133
Number of attempts: 8

Number Sort - 321 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: #102 / 171
Number of attempts: 1

That hyphen - 2602 entries

"vim vi improved"

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #200 / 704
Number of attempts: 6

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: 9
Position: #112 / 328
Number of attempts: 3

Flip the bit - 140 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

Best score: 8
Best player score: 8
Position: #19 / 79
Number of attempts: 2

Just the middle - 11555 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #1219 / 4234
Number of attempts: 4

Team names - 1848 entries

The team names are misspelled.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #218 / 592
Number of attempts: 5

Todo list specification - 405 entries

The every item on the todo list must be done today. Modify the list to reflect that.

Best score: 37
Best player score: 37
Position: #71 / 183
Number of attempts: 1

Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1011 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: #189 / 387
Number of attempts: 2

Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 274 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

Best score: 7
Best player score: 8
Position: #106 / 146
Number of attempts: 1

Stairstep digits - 407 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #39 / 149
Number of attempts: 4

Missing Library and a Typo - 943 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: #87 / 221
Number of attempts: 4

Basic renumbering - 5707 entries

Renumbering Basic.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #165 / 1274
Number of attempts: 7

Simple addition - 332 entries

The right side of the equation is already there. We just need the left one now.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #43 / 124
Number of attempts: 6

Interactive git rebase changing commands - 176 entries

How to change the action of some commits in git rebase dialog.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 15
Position: #53 / 80
Number of attempts: 2

Adam's challenge - 1010 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: 18
Position: #76 / 277
Number of attempts: 8

Create a table - 333 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #35 / 106
Number of attempts: 4

Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 880 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: #126 / 295
Number of attempts: 3

Nesting SASS - 287 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #40 / 99
Number of attempts: 5

Combines all items - 313 entries

For each line that starts with the same number I want to combine its contents

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #69 / 140
Number of attempts: 3

Wrap text in quotes - 368 entries

All the blocks of text should be wrapped in quotation marks.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #39 / 122
Number of attempts: 3

Vice versa - 7981 entries

Little role switching.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #453 / 2147
Number of attempts: 6

C Reformatting - 692 entries

You may use Visual mode... or not. #uppercase

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #17 / 164
Number of attempts: 12

Paragraph sort - 450 entries

My large herbivorous mammals, Vim commands, and POSIX utilities need to be sorted separately.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #33 / 125
Number of attempts: 4

Order and join - 992 entries

There's something special about the input order.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #61 / 261
Number of attempts: 4

Paragraph breaks - 527 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #35 / 168
Number of attempts: 3

Replace and keep the case - 438 entries

Replace all instance of plugin and Plugin to device and Device.

Best score: 26
Best player score: 26
Position: #45 / 119
Number of attempts: 5

Alsa configuration - 513 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

Best score: 22
Best player score: 27
Position: #75 / 128
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: 11
Position: #77 / 247
Number of attempts: 15

Generate a list of numbers - 299 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #52 / 141
Number of attempts: 3

One to Ten - 2243 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: #86 / 683
Number of attempts: 3

Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 679 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: 14
Position: #28 / 211
Number of attempts: 3

Build a six - 314 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #32 / 101
Number of attempts: 3

Increment each number - 1062 entries

Increment each number individually by one

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 257
Number of attempts: 9

Delete to the end of the current line - 865 entries

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

Best score: 5
Best player score: 5
Position: #114 / 415
Number of attempts: 1

move titles next to url, in quotes - 558 entries

had trouble with something similar

Best score: 19
Best player score: 21
Position: #52 / 147
Number of attempts: 3

Array transposition - 2444 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #138 / 453
Number of attempts: 15

convert yml into java pojo field - 873 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: 29
Position: #62 / 231
Number of attempts: 3

Mirror Symmetry - 822 entries

Add backslashes.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #82 / 269
Number of attempts: 8

unknown command - 175 entries

I want change 5 words

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #45 / 91
Number of attempts: 1

Collect List - 4317 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #418 / 1194
Number of attempts: 5

VimGolfNight - 575 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #265 / 352
Number of attempts: 5

Space out the alphabet - 1659 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #93 / 446
Number of attempts: 7

Fix the XML - 1039 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #55 / 290
Number of attempts: 8

Condensed Cases - 811 entries

Apple's new programming language, Swift, allows two style of case statements: 1) one Enum case on each line, or 2) multiple Enum cases on a single line. Convert the following from the first case (no pun intended) to the second type.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #54 / 249
Number of attempts: 5

Happy TvvO - 432 entries

Don’t forget the past, learn from it. Happy New Year.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #136 / 207
Number of attempts: 3

I forgot quotes - 16127 entries

Oops.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #851 / 4208
Number of attempts: 6

-a-b-c- - 3225 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #250 / 1140
Number of attempts: 3

Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #49 / 354
Number of attempts: 5

Lisp Condense - 460 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #48 / 158
Number of attempts: 7

Gray area - 749 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #23 / 272
Number of attempts: 5

Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1164 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #68 / 301
Number of attempts: 13

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: 11
Position: #110 / 587
Number of attempts: 9

Two become one - 720 entries

We have two c arrays and want to make one two dimensional out of it. Can we do that?

Best score: 25
Best player score: 25
Position: #6 / 210
Number of attempts: 7

Where should I put the Newline? - 885 entries

Help me put the newline.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #204 / 439
Number of attempts: 3

Mess in revision history - 1210 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #55 / 254
Number of attempts: 8

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10720 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #1375 / 3703
Number of attempts: 3

attr_aligner - 3525 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #151 / 706
Number of attempts: 14

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: 9
Position: #25 / 520
Number of attempts: 8

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: 14
Position: #310 / 1086
Number of attempts: 4

Words in parens - 13005 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #976 / 3979
Number of attempts: 3

Resort and deup a CSV list - 184 entries

I'm always adding items to a sorted list. There has to be a better way dedup and resort the lists. There are multiple lists with varying lengths to discourage manual sorting. Also Australia's animals are weird.

Best score: 44
Best player score: 44
Position: #5 / 45
Number of attempts: 5

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1620 entries

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

Best score: 8
Best player score: 8
Position: #99 / 450
Number of attempts: 7

Array Transposition - 215 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

Best score: 27
Best player score: 28
Position: #12 / 58
Number of attempts: 5

Saving the hashes(#) - 2067 entries

The following file is copied from vimcasts.org(Its only for learning purpose,hope the site owner doesn't mind it), its probably the easiest of challenges.Our goal is to delete every line which doesn't contain a hash signs. The remaining hash signs with numbers are then sorted to get the final output.

Best score: 20
Best player score: 20
Position: #58 / 480
Number of attempts: 8

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1138 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #119 / 450
Number of attempts: 2

Vertical Limit - 2610 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 21
Position: #75 / 771
Number of attempts: 6

Exchanging Quotes - 864 entries

Sometimes you need to exchange a choice of quotes in some code.

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #10 / 232
Number of attempts: 10

Switch function arguments - 2188 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #162 / 676
Number of attempts: 6

Append semicolon after expressions - 1061 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #117 / 421
Number of attempts: 2

Remove noise from HTTP log - 732 entries

This piece of log (from the year 2000) contains some irrelevant data. We only want to see the HTTP method and resource.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #125 / 278
Number of attempts: 2

switch variable - 5101 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #542 / 1756
Number of attempts: 5

Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1015 entries

convert an ugly spreadsheet copy/paste into a CSV format.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #8 / 195
Number of attempts: 14

Make it more readable - 2015 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #93 / 654
Number of attempts: 5

remove dupes from array - 1361 entries

given a random string that contains a ruby-esque array, make sure that there are no duplicate elements

Best score: 17
Best player score: 48
Position: #327 / 338
Number of attempts: 1

HTML to Haml - 883 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 23
Position: #9 / 206
Number of attempts: 23

Numbering a List - 1941 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #39 / 657
Number of attempts: 1

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1277 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: #90 / 413
Number of attempts: 3

Assignment Alignment - 897 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #48 / 223
Number of attempts: 11

Shebangs for all - 2062 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: 11
Position: #52 / 525
Number of attempts: 5

A Simple One - 1070 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: #492 / 673
Number of attempts: 2

Reverse Simple Deletion - 862 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #42 / 463
Number of attempts: 2

The Cake is a Lie - 1389 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #247 / 538
Number of attempts: 2

Make Fancy Header - 1079 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #117 / 351
Number of attempts: 7

Change the content of a string - 1750 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #179 / 639
Number of attempts: 2

Sort and add attributes - 1557 entries

Sort the states and add the attribute country to each record.

Best score: 33
Best player score: 33
Position: #216 / 601
Number of attempts: 1

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1697 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: 20
Position: #119 / 445
Number of attempts: 6

Simple text editing with Vim - 13416 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #577 / 3845
Number of attempts: 4

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7506 entries

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

Best score: 7
Best player score: 52
Position: #1518 / 1846
Number of attempts: 2