Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

Pick a challenge, fire up Vim, and show us what you got.

Changelog, Rules & FAQ, updates: @vimgolf, RSS.

Your VimGolf key: please sign in

$ gem install vimgolf
$ vimgolf setup
$ vimgolf put [challenge ID]

Played Challenges

Prime Numbers - 342 entries

List the first 100 prime numbers.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #32 / 101
  • Number of attempts: 2
vim = 22 / 7 - 447 entries

pi square vim

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #22 / 131
  • Number of attempts: 3
Word Blender - 146 entries

The insides of long words seem to have been run through the blender. Can you fix this famous tale, brave knight?

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #31 / 55
  • Number of attempts: 1
Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 676 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #3 / 384
  • 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: #58 / 1585
  • Number of attempts: 2
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 936 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: 45
  • Position: #248 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 2
Return the cow - 71 entries

This cow is too verbose. Give it a lesson.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 58
  • Position: #11 / 28
  • Number of attempts: 3
O Christmas Tree - 108 entries

Design a macro that makes trees grow (or ASCII triangles, if that's too hard).

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #16 / 42
  • Number of attempts: 2
Cartesian product - 221 entries

{1,2,3,4,5} X {1,2,3,4,5}

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #26 / 92
  • Number of attempts: 5
VimGolfNight - 531 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #154 / 342
  • Number of attempts: 1
Write Setters and Getters for PHP - 86 entries

Just simple automation of writing Setters and Getters like Doctrine might use.

  • Best score: 102
  • Best player score: 114
  • Position: #6 / 32
  • Number of attempts: 1
Going underground.... - 330 entries

Simple reformatting: in this case changing from the format London underground supplies its customers with, to the format that Google Calendar likes...

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #60 / 124
  • Number of attempts: 1
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10616 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #1734 / 3663
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 11
  • Position: #230 / 511
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12848 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2056 / 3943
  • Number of attempts: 1
Pairs of numbers - 349 entries

Line 1 represents x, line 2 y-data. Bring the corresponding pairs in the form "[x,y]\n"

  • Best score: 26
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #42 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 3
Hole-in-one - 1012 entries

Lets take this golf thing literally.. Drive off the tee into the hole, and of course you don't strike the ball completely clean.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #131 / 302
  • Number of attempts: 1
Circle in a square - 140 entries

Probably looks more like "Egg in a rectangle" in most fonts, but it's actually 23x23.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #8 / 52
  • Number of attempts: 2
Here, piggy, piggy... - 75 entries

Youay owknay atwhay otay oday...

  • Best score: 68
  • Best player score: 88
  • Position: #13 / 21
  • Number of attempts: 2
Happy New Year! - 143 entries

This is a simple new year's challenge.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #32 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 1
Generate Fibonacci Numbers - 260 entries

Use your super vim powers to generate Fibonacci Numbers.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #47 / 97
  • Number of attempts: 2
It'ss tooo coold too typpe todaay - 215 entries

My hands are numb with cold. It's hard to type correctly.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #27 / 96
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat long lines - 341 entries

Rearrange this ruby method call to put each parameter on its own line. Could become a useful macro.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #38 / 130
  • Number of attempts: 3
Generate English Alphabets - 463 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #158 / 198
  • Number of attempts: 2
Overall Vimgolf Rank - 170 entries

Suppose you are trying to figure out what your overall rank is at Vimgolf(the sum of all the ranks you got), and as a Vim ninja you decided to use Vim to do the job. Your solution should work for every Vimgolf profile page(The actual input file for this challenge is my Vimgolf profile page). So, direct answer insertion is considered cheating.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #26 / 57
  • Number of attempts: 2
Insert a Markdown link - 431 entries

Put a link in a markdown document, using the after-the-paragraph format.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #42 / 143
  • Number of attempts: 2
Getters & Setters: Java - 205 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: 105
  • Position: #17 / 56
  • Number of attempts: 1
Solve the Sokoban - 161 entries

A wink for all Vimgolfers that play Nethack too.

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #49 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 1
The holy-grail may help - 345 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #11 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1216 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: 13
  • Position: #123 / 398
  • Number of attempts: 1
Assignment Alignment - 829 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #95 / 215
  • Number of attempts: 2
Shebangs for all - 1904 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: #74 / 497
  • Number of attempts: 2
A Simple One - 996 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: #8 / 641
  • Number of attempts: 1
Round Round - 287 entries

Round Round

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 74
  • Position: #50 / 84
  • Number of attempts: 1
82 bottles of beer on the wall - 302 entries

Take them down. (sorry, only 82 bottles because the problem size is limited!)

  • Best score: 106
  • Best player score: 112
  • Position: #17 / 140
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse and count - 455 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: 26
  • Position: #87 / 172
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letters are numbers - 150 entries

Letters and numbers are interchangeable. A lot of programming languages give you simple ways to convert individual letters to hex, binary and decimal but does Vim?

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #47 / 73
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ruby 1.9 compat - 609 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: 14
  • Position: #7 / 229
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reverse Simple Deletion - 832 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #61 / 454
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 643 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #107 / 398
  • Number of attempts: 1
Indentation - 497 entries

Indent each line according to the right number of spaces it needs.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #34 / 168
  • Number of attempts: 2
Hatsuyume - 450 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #31 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 2
Turn this csv list into queries - 204 entries

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

  • Best score: 98
  • Best player score: 107
  • Position: #21 / 95
  • Number of attempts: 2
Dumb to smart - 96 entries

Turn dumb quote to smart vim's way.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #11 / 54
  • Number of attempts: 2
The Cake is a Lie - 1284 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #31 / 511
  • Number of attempts: 1
Context insensitive completion 0 - 502 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: 7
  • Position: #13 / 231
  • Number of attempts: 1
Compile C - 365 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #28 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 2
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 456 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #11 / 231
  • Number of attempts: 1
Almost encrypted - 198 entries

Convert the first paragraph to be even less readable.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #20 / 144
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make Fancy Header - 1007 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #146 / 337
  • Number of attempts: 2
Linear congruential generator - 128 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #43 / 50
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reformat some Python - 579 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 44
  • Position: #130 / 229
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse characters in a line - 709 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: #140 / 249
  • Number of attempts: 1
PEP8 Python Wrapping Comments and Code - 187 entries

According to PEP8, long flowy text and code should have different max line lengths. Code: 79 characters max Long flowy text: 72 characters max

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #36 / 64
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat most common surnames - 644 entries

Reformat copy-pasted table into a list of the most common surnames

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #110 / 197
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remember FizzBuzz? - 653 entries

Output FizzBuzz to 100. Start with nothing.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 56
  • Position: #69 / 177
  • Number of attempts: 3
Deleting folded text - 338 entries

The text below contains three folds. Delete them (and the text inside them). For example: 123 456 /*{{{*/ 789 /*}}}*/ 012 Should become: 123 012 Also, add `aoeuaoeu` to make sure small solutions don't get flagged as cheating.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #20 / 113
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add fold markers to a .c file - 550 entries

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

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #123 / 170
  • Number of attempts: 1
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3290 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #400 / 729
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: #755 / 3567
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6512 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #392 / 1603
  • Number of attempts: 1
Matthew Draper
Twitter:

@matthewd@mastodon.social

entered into 61 challenges

contributed 0 challenges