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

Rural Post - 4563 entries

Simple challenge to remove all but the post code on each line

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #456 / 1113
  • Number of attempts: 5
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 1008 entries

You created an ansible playbook, but forgot to add quotes. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #247 / 317
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap values inside brackets - 2515 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #251 / 584
  • Number of attempts: 1
V to the i - 4824 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1378 / 1899
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2900 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #590 / 859
  • Number of attempts: 1
Add semicolons - 10889 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #518 / 3076
  • Number of attempts: 2
Bad Copy Syntax - 2050 entries

Copy should be from right to left, but sometimes you type it wrong.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #278 / 533
  • Number of attempts: 1
Split line with dots - 2154 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #463 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3610 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #203 / 1172
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3890 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #394 / 882
  • Number of attempts: 5
Box it - 7939 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #868 / 1885
  • Number of attempts: 4
Tables, Functions, Sprocs - 139 entries

In order to load some scripts into my database in the correct order I need to load tables first (t_), then functions (fn_), then stored procedures (sp_). The order of the t_ lines and the order of the sp_ lines should also match. Reorder the lines so they will load correctly.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #25 / 48
  • Number of attempts: 5
multiple cursor alternative - 1542 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: 30
  • Position: #343 / 384
  • Number of attempts: 1
html paragraph to table - 606 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 58
  • Position: #64 / 126
  • Number of attempts: 6
Copy three lines - 2875 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #505 / 641
  • Number of attempts: 1
Extract argument from function - 2369 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #377 / 756
  • Number of attempts: 2
Search and Replace 0 - 5007 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1044 / 1631
  • Number of attempts: 2
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 542 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: #64 / 130
  • Number of attempts: 4
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #481 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 10
  • Position: #208 / 328
  • Number of attempts: 3
Flip the bit - 132 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #67 / 75
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11497 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #3846 / 4215
  • 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: #51 / 60
  • Number of attempts: 1
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 1006 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: 42
  • Position: #131 / 383
  • Number of attempts: 2
For all cases. - 168 entries

In this case... change it! :) Watch the line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #66 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 266 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #108 / 144
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 913 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: 20
  • Position: #153 / 218
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5685 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #941 / 1270
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 15
  • Position: #108 / 124
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 17
  • Position: #71 / 80
  • Number of attempts: 2
create arrows in a list - 128 entries

Add arrow at same distance

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #71 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 2
Nesting SASS - 278 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #60 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add to end of each line... kinda - 338 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: 12
  • Position: #92 / 175
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7967 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1385 / 2144
  • Number of attempts: 1
Order and join - 985 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #126 / 260
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1069 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #407 / 428
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change attribute to getter - 157 entries

Wrap attributes with a getter method.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #45 / 63
  • Number of attempts: 2
Generate a list of numbers - 299 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #111 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 4
Python challenge - 178 entries

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

  • Best score: 31
  • Best player score: 40
  • Position: #23 / 47
  • Number of attempts: 5
One to Ten - 2234 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: 22
  • Position: #599 / 679
  • Number of attempts: 2
Around the clock - 199 entries

You'll want to use 2 special commands to complete this. If you haven't yet, read through 'input.txt', especially :help simple-changes

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #41 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 1
Join 'em - 251 entries

This shouldn't be too tough

  • Best score: 4
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #30 / 151
  • Number of attempts: 1
Delete to the end of the current line - 847 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #323 / 406
  • Number of attempts: 1
change parenthesis - 296 entries

change the pair of braces into a pair of parentheses

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #34 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reorder the groups - 1182 entries

Change the order so that the groups of fruit come before the vegetables.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #179 / 265
  • Number of attempts: 1
convert yml into java pojo field - 859 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: 39
  • Position: #209 / 228
  • Number of attempts: 1
Swap assigned value - 664 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #215 / 258
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mute the second method of this script - 455 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #217 / 239
  • Number of attempts: 1
Condensed Cases - 807 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: 19
  • Position: #220 / 248
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 16051 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2307 / 4194
  • 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: #109 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 2
Suffix sort - 270 entries

Sort from the end of the line, as if the letters in each line were reversed.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #62 / 67
  • 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: #111 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 1
Gray area - 747 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #182 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 1
Where should I put the Newline? - 883 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #395 / 438
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10699 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #2467 / 3695
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 12
  • Position: #359 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 1
quotes inside quotes - 3182 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: 22
  • Position: #1037 / 1085
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12969 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #3509 / 3970
  • Number of attempts: 1
Enumerate words - 257 entries

Enumerate the unique words in order.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #78 / 92
  • Number of attempts: 4
Readable Rubyhash - 274 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: 23
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #45 / 97
  • Number of attempts: 5
Santa's naughty / nice list - 90 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: #22 / 26
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Vim - 425 entries

Someone has vandalized this text file and replaced the beginning character of one word in each line with a Big "X." Please remove the big X's, and fix each line to read "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog."

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #153 / 193
  • Number of attempts: 2
The name of the game - 678 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #248 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 1
SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1616 entries

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

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #414 / 447
  • Number of attempts: 2
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1126 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #316 / 447
  • Number of attempts: 1
Switch function arguments - 2152 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #428 / 667
  • Number of attempts: 1
Append semicolon after expressions - 1057 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #247 / 420
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5085 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #958 / 1750
  • Number of attempts: 1
The meaning - 575 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #288 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 1
The holy-grail may help - 389 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #149 / 215
  • Number of attempts: 3
Shebangs for all - 2039 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: 14
  • Position: #239 / 521
  • Number of attempts: 3
A Simple One - 1064 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: #495 / 670
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse Simple Deletion - 857 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #346 / 461
  • Number of attempts: 2
Hatsuyume - 548 entries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsuyume

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #39 / 189
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Cake is a Lie - 1374 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #389 / 534
  • Number of attempts: 1
Fix the Haiku - 320 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: 45
  • Position: #82 / 115
  • Number of attempts: 1
Context insensitive completion 0 - 590 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: 10
  • Position: #232 / 249
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make Fancy Header - 1070 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #207 / 348
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat a C golf submission - 614 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: 34
  • Position: #137 / 210
  • Number of attempts: 2
Change the content of a string - 1646 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #504 / 607
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sort and add attributes - 1499 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #220 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7229 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #1069 / 1778
  • Number of attempts: 1
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entered into 83 challenges

contributed 0 challenges