VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

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: 22
Position: #1722 / 7364
Number of attempts: 5

Swap values - 4543 entries

Well, swap the values...

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #264 / 1257
Number of attempts: 5

One number per line - 18616 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #508 / 3842
Number of attempts: 8

Swap values inside brackets - 2464 entries

Easy challenge.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #28 / 569
Number of attempts: 6

V to the i - 4751 entries

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

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #642 / 1879
Number of attempts: 2

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: 13
Position: #129 / 840
Number of attempts: 3

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: 19
Position: #16 / 98
Number of attempts: 5

Split line with dots - 2125 entries

This line is too long, split it.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 21
Position: #435 / 630
Number of attempts: 2

remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3537 entries

easy stuff

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #585 / 1144
Number of attempts: 3

Com(m)a Trouble - 3675 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #29 / 827
Number of attempts: 11

Box it - 7828 entries

Create a box around a line.

Best score: 21
Best player score: 23
Position: #600 / 1865
Number of attempts: 6

Triangular Numbers - 90 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #10 / 26
Number of attempts: 4

Cool or not? - 793 entries

abc trying to be cool or not...

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 226
Number of attempts: 6

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: 19
Position: #68 / 376
Number of attempts: 10

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: 17
Position: #107 / 450
Number of attempts: 3

Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 735 entries

Clean and group.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #16 / 174
Number of attempts: 10

Every other line - 2886 entries

AaAaAaA

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #34 / 700
Number of attempts: 6

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: 13
Position: #121 / 635
Number of attempts: 7

Convert Application Output to CSV - 187 entries

Change the application output to comma-separated values

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #17 / 52
Number of attempts: 3

Array propagate - 319 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

Best score: 23
Best player score: 24
Position: #40 / 115
Number of attempts: 6

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: 14
Position: #365 / 744
Number of attempts: 3

Search and Replace 0 - 4792 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #569 / 1585
Number of attempts: 3

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: 30
Position: #8 / 127
Number of attempts: 8

Number Sort - 305 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 / 163
Number of attempts: 1

That hyphen - 2556 entries

"vim vi improved"

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #200 / 695
Number of attempts: 6

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: 9
Position: #112 / 314
Number of attempts: 3

Flip the bit - 119 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

Best score: 8
Best player score: 8
Position: #19 / 70
Number of attempts: 2

Just the middle - 11360 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #1219 / 4164
Number of attempts: 4

Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #218 / 581
Number of attempts: 5

Todo list specification - 385 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 / 176
Number of attempts: 1

Python Hello World! Reformatting - 938 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: #179 / 364
Number of attempts: 2

Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 257 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

Best score: 7
Best player score: 8
Position: #104 / 138
Number of attempts: 1

Stairstep digits - 376 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #39 / 141
Number of attempts: 4

Missing Library and a Typo - 856 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: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #81 / 209
Number of attempts: 4

Basic renumbering - 5587 entries

Renumbering Basic.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #165 / 1258
Number of attempts: 7

Simple addition - 310 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 / 117
Number of attempts: 6

Interactive git rebase changing commands - 161 entries

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

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #52 / 77
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: 18
Position: #76 / 266
Number of attempts: 8

Create a table - 325 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #35 / 104
Number of attempts: 4

Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 840 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 / 287
Number of attempts: 3

Nesting SASS - 261 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #40 / 93
Number of attempts: 5

Combines all items - 303 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 / 137
Number of attempts: 3

Wrap text in quotes - 349 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #39 / 120
Number of attempts: 3

Vice versa - 7805 entries

Little role switching.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #453 / 2101
Number of attempts: 6

C Reformatting - 688 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #17 / 161
Number of attempts: 12

Paragraph sort - 430 entries

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

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #33 / 123
Number of attempts: 4

Order and join - 956 entries

There's something special about the input order.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #61 / 255
Number of attempts: 4

Paragraph breaks - 505 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #35 / 165
Number of attempts: 3

Replace and keep the case - 407 entries

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

Best score: 26
Best player score: 26
Position: #45 / 115
Number of attempts: 5

Alsa configuration - 491 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

Best score: 22
Best player score: 27
Position: #73 / 125
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: 11
Position: #77 / 241
Number of attempts: 15

Generate a list of numbers - 283 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #52 / 136
Number of attempts: 3

One to Ten - 2165 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 / 662
Number of attempts: 3

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: 14
Position: #28 / 203
Number of attempts: 3

Build a six - 272 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #32 / 92
Number of attempts: 3

Increment each number - 977 entries

Increment each number individually by one

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 242
Number of attempts: 9

Delete to the end of the current line - 791 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 / 385
Number of attempts: 1

move titles next to url, in quotes - 504 entries

had trouble with something similar

Best score: 19
Best player score: 21
Position: #49 / 135
Number of attempts: 3

Array transposition - 2378 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #136 / 443
Number of attempts: 15

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: 29
Position: #62 / 223
Number of attempts: 3

Mirror Symmetry - 798 entries

Add backslashes.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #82 / 266
Number of attempts: 8

unknown command - 158 entries

I want change 5 words

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #45 / 83
Number of attempts: 1

Collect List - 4264 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #418 / 1186
Number of attempts: 5

VimGolfNight - 536 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #265 / 343
Number of attempts: 5

Space out the alphabet - 1627 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #93 / 440
Number of attempts: 7

Fix the XML - 996 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #55 / 284
Number of attempts: 8

Condensed Cases - 788 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 / 242
Number of attempts: 5

Happy TvvO - 407 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #136 / 201
Number of attempts: 3

I forgot quotes - 15931 entries

Oops.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #851 / 4161
Number of attempts: 6

-a-b-c- - 3176 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #250 / 1129
Number of attempts: 3

Count both ways - 1001 entries

Right AND down.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #49 / 351
Number of attempts: 5

Lisp Condense - 438 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #48 / 154
Number of attempts: 7

Gray area - 732 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #23 / 268
Number of attempts: 5

Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1120 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #68 / 293
Number of attempts: 13

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: 11
Position: #110 / 578
Number of attempts: 9

Two become one - 710 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 / 205
Number of attempts: 7

Where should I put the Newline? - 863 entries

Help me put the newline.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #204 / 431
Number of attempts: 3

Mess in revision history - 1161 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #55 / 247
Number of attempts: 8

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10624 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #1375 / 3666
Number of attempts: 3

attr_aligner - 3444 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #151 / 692
Number of attempts: 14

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: 9
Position: #25 / 511
Number of attempts: 8

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: 14
Position: #310 / 1072
Number of attempts: 4

Words in parens - 12858 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #964 / 3946
Number of attempts: 3

Resort and deup a CSV list - 142 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 / 39
Number of attempts: 5

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1581 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 / 439
Number of attempts: 7

Array Transposition - 177 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

Best score: 27
Best player score: 28
Position: #9 / 53
Number of attempts: 5

Saving the hashes(#) - 1992 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 / 473
Number of attempts: 8

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1091 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #119 / 441
Number of attempts: 2

Vertical Limit - 2440 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 21
Position: #75 / 737
Number of attempts: 6

Exchanging Quotes - 821 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #10 / 225
Number of attempts: 10

Switch function arguments - 2082 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #162 / 652
Number of attempts: 6

Append semicolon after expressions - 1005 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #117 / 403
Number of attempts: 2

Remove noise from HTTP log - 695 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 / 270
Number of attempts: 2

switch variable - 5036 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #542 / 1736
Number of attempts: 5

Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 973 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #8 / 185
Number of attempts: 14

Make it more readable - 1952 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #93 / 640
Number of attempts: 5

remove dupes from array - 1336 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: #320 / 331
Number of attempts: 1

HTML to Haml - 842 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 23
Position: #9 / 202
Number of attempts: 23

Numbering a List - 1859 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #39 / 639
Number of attempts: 1

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1221 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 / 401
Number of attempts: 3

Assignment Alignment - 832 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #48 / 215
Number of attempts: 11

Shebangs for all - 1912 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 / 500
Number of attempts: 5

A Simple One - 1001 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 / 643
Number of attempts: 2

Reverse Simple Deletion - 832 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #42 / 454
Number of attempts: 2

The Cake is a Lie - 1286 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #247 / 512
Number of attempts: 2

Make Fancy Header - 1014 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #115 / 338
Number of attempts: 7

Change the content of a string - 1476 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #179 / 558
Number of attempts: 2

Sort and add attributes - 1327 entries

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

Best score: 33
Best player score: 33
Position: #216 / 529
Number of attempts: 1

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1369 entries

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

Best score: 20
Best player score: 20
Position: #108 / 384
Number of attempts: 6

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: 13
Position: #577 / 3581
Number of attempts: 4

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6560 entries

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

Best score: 32
Best player score: 52
Position: #1386 / 1616
Number of attempts: 2