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 - 33353 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: 25
  • Position: #3353 / 7358
  • Number of attempts: 3
Swap values - 4535 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #1181 / 1255
  • Number of attempts: 1
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6201 entries

Prepend an asterisk to every non-blank line in the input file.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #58 / 1514
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 18613 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1288 / 3841
  • Number of attempts: 8
citizen_hacks_2019_challenge2 - 189 entries

For the Citizen Hacks 2019 Vim competition.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #38 / 99
  • Number of attempts: 3
Swap values inside brackets - 2464 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #425 / 569
  • Number of attempts: 1
Unsemantic linewrapping - 890 entries

[Inspired by a blog post I read: https://scott.mn/2014/02/21/semantic_linewrapping/. Text adapted.] Sometimes when editing a Markdown file, I wrap the lines semantically. Instead of inserting a newline at 70 columns (or whatever), or making paragraphs one long line, I put in newlines at a point that seems logical to me. This may seem silly, but it produces better diffs. Semantic linewrapping also makes editing snappier. I can delete, edit or insert sentences easily using linewise operations. Code-oriented text editors like Vim and [REDACTED] are really good at this kind of manipulation. Editing text that hasn't been wrapped semantically is a pain, though:

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #159 / 224
  • Number of attempts: 4
V to the i - 4743 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #690 / 1878
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: #196 / 840
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add string initializers to an enum - 862 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #149 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 2
SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case - 1177 entries

Convert strings in SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case. Examples: EMPLOYEE_NAME -> Employee Name REVENUE_YEAR_TO_DATE -> Revenue Year To Date SALARY -> Salary

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #146 / 243
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add semicolons - 10785 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #445 / 3042
  • Number of attempts: 4
Bad Copy Syntax - 1999 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #126 / 514
  • Number of attempts: 4
Split line with dots - 2124 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #530 / 629
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3528 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #311 / 1142
  • Number of attempts: 7
Com(m)a Trouble - 3654 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #72 / 821
  • Number of attempts: 9
Box it - 7818 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #912 / 1861
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: 20
  • Position: #177 / 376
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: #124 / 450
  • Number of attempts: 3
Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 735 entries

Clean and group.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #105 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 2
Every other line - 2886 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #355 / 700
  • Number of attempts: 3
Copy three lines - 2839 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #241 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 5
Extract argument from function - 2308 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #458 / 742
  • Number of attempts: 1
Search and Replace 0 - 4790 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #625 / 1585
  • Number of attempts: 3
That hyphen - 2554 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #478 / 694
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: #134 / 314
  • Number of attempts: 4
Just the middle - 11346 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #1301 / 4160
  • Number of attempts: 6
Team names - 1805 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #246 / 581
  • Number of attempts: 5
Basic renumbering - 5584 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #766 / 1257
  • Number of attempts: 1
ninja substitution - 1372 entries

How can you reuse a previous substitution ?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #190 / 261
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7778 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1381 / 2095
  • Number of attempts: 1
One to Ten - 2159 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: #195 / 660
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: #51 / 203
  • Number of attempts: 4
Line under headers - 1996 entries

Put a line under each header, and remove the other markdown formatting.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #367 / 494
  • Number of attempts: 4
Increment each number - 977 entries

Increment each number individually by one

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #168 / 242
  • Number of attempts: 1
Delete to the end of the current line - 738 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #192 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 2
Song Transcription Oops - 234 entries

When transcribing vocal music to Canjo Tab you can start by finding the lowest note and assigning that to zero and working your way up from there. However, without fail, I tend to miscount the notes and when I am near done I find a lower note. I mark this with a "z". This means I have to increase all the previous ones by 1. just a sting of numbers :)

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #72 / 75
  • Number of attempts: 1
change parenthesis - 278 entries

change the pair of braces into a pair of parentheses

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #65 / 156
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reorder the groups - 1137 entries

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

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #203 / 259
  • Number of attempts: 2
move titles next to url, in quotes - 504 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #100 / 135
  • Number of attempts: 1
Array transposition - 2378 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #385 / 443
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: #78 / 223
  • Number of attempts: 6
Collect List - 4261 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #862 / 1185
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 15922 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1886 / 4159
  • Number of attempts: 9
-a-b-c- - 3170 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #394 / 1127
  • Number of attempts: 3
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10616 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1441 / 3663
  • Number of attempts: 3
attr_aligner - 3444 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 41
  • Position: #628 / 692
  • Number of attempts: 2
quotes inside quotes - 3124 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: 16
  • Position: #655 / 1071
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12848 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1031 / 3943
  • Number of attempts: 3
calculations - 262 entries

Complete these (weird) calculations.

  • Best score: 38
  • Best player score: 61
  • Position: #51 / 64
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 2925 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #655 / 764
  • Number of attempts: 1
switch variable - 5028 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #1234 / 1734
  • Number of attempts: 3
Simple text editing with Vim - 12233 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1771 / 3567
  • Number of attempts: 2
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entered into 53 challenges

contributed 0 challenges