VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33535 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: #400 / 7397
Number of attempts: 4

One number per line - 18705 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 19
Position: #1563 / 3855
Number of attempts: 3

vim = 22 / 7 - 472 entries

pi square vim

Best score: 20
Best player score: 20
Position: #10 / 134
Number of attempts: 5

Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 750 entries

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

Best score: 5
Best player score: 5
Position: #172 / 405
Number of attempts: 2

Search and Replace 0 - 4952 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #201 / 1615
Number of attempts: 3

Interweave two blocks of text - 658 entries

Suppose you've got data on a list of things from multiple sources. They're all in separate chunks, so how might you create a tabular output?

Best score: 15
Best player score: 22
Position: #187 / 213
Number of attempts: 2

Python Hello World! Reformatting - 989 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: 41
Position: #55 / 379
Number of attempts: 3

Create Leading Zeros - 239 entries

Create leading zeros only for id columns. Please use generic approach!

Best score: 23
Best player score: 26
Position: #34 / 81
Number of attempts: 5

Vim's not included features - 240 entries

Filter not included (-) features in a hypothetical installation of vim.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 25
Position: #31 / 65
Number of attempts: 5

VimGolfNight - 555 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #85 / 345
Number of attempts: 1

Split the words - 357 entries

Add the spaces manually if you must, but if you use Vim's spell checking feature wisely, I think you'll save a LARGE number of strokes.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 27
Position: #23 / 109
Number of attempts: 6

Permutations N=4 - 61 entries

Could use backtracking or other algorithm to generate sorted numbers. Second chance !

Best score: 25
Best player score: 82
Position: #19 / 19
Number of attempts: 3

Ninjas Leaderboard - 99 entries

The two lines in "Start file" has an obfuscated email address. Second line give an index (from 1 to 30) to the chars list of the first line, for example, the first char of email (n) is in position 25, second char (i) is in position 19 and s.o.

Best score: 25
Best player score: 35
Position: #26 / 41
Number of attempts: 1

Counting in binary - 522 entries

"a" represents 0; "A" represents 1. Start from zero and count to 15.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 22
Position: #38 / 115
Number of attempts: 7

Letter case trickery - 1619 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: 10
Position: #145 / 515
Number of attempts: 5

quotes inside quotes - 3154 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: #51 / 1075
Number of attempts: 2

Top X - 212 entries

The End File is the Top 10 Vimgolf Leaderboard at June 29, 2013. This is a second version, with a great contribution of @udioica. X is ten in Roman,a numeric system in ancient Rome

Best score: 18
Best player score: 24
Position: #24 / 71
Number of attempts: 7

Sort the VimGolf challenges by popularity - 348 entries

"Sort by popularity" is a good order to play the challenges. Not perfect, but you could do a lot worse. ;) Input is a sample copy-pasted from vimgolf.com. Some of the challenge names have digits that will get in your way, so read ":help :sort" for hints on sorting with a regex. When you're done, try your solution on the full list!

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #44 / 107
Number of attempts: 2

Words in parens - 12918 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 16
Position: #1966 / 3957
Number of attempts: 3

Pairs of numbers - 362 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: 27
Position: #22 / 135
Number of attempts: 5

Hole-in-one - 1017 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: #124 / 303
Number of attempts: 4

It's a factor - 104 entries

Flaunt your macro prowess by factoring some numbers. Too hard? It takes less than 30 strokes, I promise.

Best score: 24
Best player score: 39
Position: #14 / 38
Number of attempts: 7

Delete unwanted lines - 408 entries

Delete all lines which does not end in "o.."

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #88 / 228
Number of attempts: 2

Fibonacci Triangles - 59 entries

Triangles

Best score: 40
Best player score: 65
Position: #18 / 22
Number of attempts: 3

Minimalist Limerick - 520 entries

Reproduce this lovely poem.

Best score: 30
Best player score: 36
Position: #94 / 174
Number of attempts: 3

fib.c cleanup - 68 entries

cleanup the file

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #26 / 55
Number of attempts: 1

REDRUM - 164 entries

If you remember "The Shinning", the first time you saw the bloody word REDRUM you probably thinked "What the Hell is that?" Well, then you know that you need a little help from a looking-glass to make sense of it. Now it's time to use vim like a mirror to reveal the message.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 16
Position: #33 / 64
Number of attempts: 2

Enumerate words - 254 entries

Enumerate the unique words in order.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 25
Position: #24 / 91
Number of attempts: 4

Chinese Multiplication Table - 81 entries

Print a Chinese multiplication table in Vim. In China, every kid is asked to memorize this table. And thanks to the mono-syllabism of Chinese characters, it is not that hard. Printing the multiplication table is also a good exercise for programming beginners. For-loop, escaped characters, etc... There should be some special ways to print it in Vim.

Best score: 39
Best player score: 71
Position: #13 / 26
Number of attempts: 4

Block Fun 1 - 210 entries

Manipulate the columns to produce desired result.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 17
Position: #22 / 75
Number of attempts: 2

Python: Lots of function arguments - 105 entries

The function definition is too long for one line. The modeline helps you with some typical Python indent settings.

Best score: 6
Best player score: 15
Position: #30 / 48
Number of attempts: 3

Readable Rubyhash - 263 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: 26
Position: #21 / 94
Number of attempts: 1

Dehamlizing - 185 entries

Change this piece of HAML code back into erb

Best score: 32
Best player score: 39
Position: #28 / 72
Number of attempts: 7

Checkerboard case pattern - 163 entries

All the squares are white. Make some of them black. But only the right ones.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #14 / 60
Number of attempts: 4

NATO phonetic alphabet - 526 entries

Transform the series of words into a list.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #9 / 195
Number of attempts: 4

A simple change - 461 entries

Just change the numbers in the most efficient way ...

Best score: 12
Best player score: 14
Position: #84 / 191
Number of attempts: 3

SFD-ROC: The Quick Brown Fox - 189 entries

Someone has vandalized our text (again). Please fix to read: The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.

Best score: 24
Best player score: 28
Position: #68 / 105
Number of attempts: 1

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Vim - 416 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: 10
Position: #50 / 191
Number of attempts: 3

The name of the game - 665 entries

End up with the name of the game.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #98 / 360
Number of attempts: 1

lamb had a little Mary - 598 entries

"Mary" and "lamb" are swapped. Unswap them. Fast as you can.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 32
Position: #59 / 165
Number of attempts: 4

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1606 entries

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

Best score: 8
Best player score: 9
Position: #175 / 446
Number of attempts: 2

Stairs Indenting - 473 entries

Indent each line with <line number> whitespaces.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 14
Position: #101 / 197
Number of attempts: 1

Saving the hashes(#) - 2048 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: 27
Position: #223 / 478
Number of attempts: 6

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1118 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #23 / 445
Number of attempts: 2

Flip the chessboard - 95 entries

White's turn is over. Flip the board to black's perspective. I added coordinates to frustrate you.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 28
Position: #20 / 32
Number of attempts: 3

Vertical Limit - 2522 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 25
Position: #332 / 751
Number of attempts: 4

Exchanging Quotes - 851 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 34
Position: #82 / 228
Number of attempts: 2

replacing each line of a block selection - 2987 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 21
Position: #352 / 774
Number of attempts: 5

Switch function arguments - 2117 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 14
Position: #454 / 657
Number of attempts: 2

Append semicolon after expressions - 1046 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #183 / 413
Number of attempts: 3

Remove noise from HTTP log - 717 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: #59 / 273
Number of attempts: 4

Remove semicolons after expressions - 648 entries

A follow-up for http://vimgolf.com/challenges/4fc9d767d3a0d4000100000e.

Best score: 6
Best player score: 8
Position: #199 / 262
Number of attempts: 2

switch variable - 5061 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 13
Position: #1091 / 1743
Number of attempts: 3

Format the output - 146 entries

Sometimes your standard out is a little hard to read. Take this multilevel hash and make it human readable.

Best score: 35
Best player score: 40
Position: #13 / 40
Number of attempts: 8

Sort the cardinal numbers - 310 entries

Maybe a simple challenge.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 14
Position: #116 / 148
Number of attempts: 1

Make it more readable - 1982 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #30 / 645
Number of attempts: 4

remove dupes from array - 1347 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: 22
Position: #167 / 334
Number of attempts: 2

Alphabetize the directory - 298 entries

Put the contacts and their information in alphabetical order.

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #11 / 101
Number of attempts: 4

PHP Array Syntax -> MailChimp Merge Syntax - 545 entries

I recently needed to send an e-mail to our marketing department listing allowed merge tags for our MailChimp campaigns. The allowed merge tags were determined from a PHP array in one of our PHP classes. I transformed the PHP class to MailChimp's syntax and sent the e-mail. It was, however, a long, laborious process. I'm still fairly new to Vim and would love to see how an expert Vim user would tackle one of my own, real-world problems. Thanks and have fun!

Best score: 23
Best player score: 34
Position: #92 / 150
Number of attempts: 1

Case preserving word replacement - 454 entries

Half way through my project, my people turned into dogs. Now I have to change everything in my source.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #46 / 180
Number of attempts: 6

imports alignment (python) - 700 entries

Align as one import per line.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 27
Position: #139 / 198
Number of attempts: 5

It'ss tooo coold too typpe todaay - 222 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #26 / 97
Number of attempts: 6

Rotating Philosophers Problem - 410 entries

Can you help the philosophers find a good place to sit before they get five forks and spaghetti?

Best score: 29
Best player score: 30
Position: #74 / 166
Number of attempts: 3

HTML to Haml - 878 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 32
Position: #78 / 204
Number of attempts: 5

Numbering a List - 1929 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 20
Position: #307 / 651
Number of attempts: 3

The holy-grail may help - 362 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #121 / 208
Number of attempts: 2

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1228 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: #57 / 403
Number of attempts: 3

Assignment Alignment - 875 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 28
Position: #134 / 218
Number of attempts: 3

Shebangs for all - 1961 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: #218 / 506
Number of attempts: 4

A Simple One - 1037 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: #311 / 657
Number of attempts: 1

Round Round - 299 entries

Round Round

Best score: 19
Best player score: 21
Position: #14 / 87
Number of attempts: 6

Table Reshuffle - 409 entries

Fix the column order in this table... also append the new 'username' column.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 27
Position: #42 / 138
Number of attempts: 5

Reverse and count - 470 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: 25
Position: #86 / 175
Number of attempts: 2

Ruby 1.9 compat - 624 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: #38 / 232
Number of attempts: 2

Reverse Simple Deletion - 845 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #265 / 457
Number of attempts: 2

Increment, increment, increment.... - 677 entries

Vim likes macros

Best score: 10
Best player score: 12
Position: #268 / 405
Number of attempts: 1

Sorting paragraphs - 510 entries

Order the paragraphs correctly, per prefixed index

Best score: 18
Best player score: 28
Position: #73 / 159
Number of attempts: 6

Indentation - 531 entries

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

Best score: 20
Best player score: 24
Position: #44 / 175
Number of attempts: 4

Hatsuyume - 495 entries

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

Best score: 15
Best player score: 28
Position: #115 / 182
Number of attempts: 2

Turn this csv list into queries - 237 entries

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

Best score: 98
Best player score: 127
Position: #58 / 99
Number of attempts: 3

The Cake is a Lie - 1330 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #342 / 523
Number of attempts: 2

Fix the Haiku - 293 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: 38
Position: #43 / 112
Number of attempts: 3

Context insensitive completion 0 - 558 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: 8
Position: #137 / 242
Number of attempts: 3

Remove Accent off the Letter - 126 entries

Remove all the accent from extremely accented statements.

Best score: 37
Best player score: 63
Position: #26 / 51
Number of attempts: 1

Compile C - 398 entries

You might have to get clever to do this one.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 22
Position: #88 / 136
Number of attempts: 1

Context Insensitive completion 1 - 494 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #99 / 243
Number of attempts: 1

Make Fancy Header - 1045 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #69 / 342
Number of attempts: 3

Reformat some Python - 604 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

Best score: 34
Best player score: 35
Position: #55 / 235
Number of attempts: 5

Reformat a C golf submission - 582 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: 29
Position: #80 / 206
Number of attempts: 8

Reverse characters in a line - 750 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: 13
Position: #59 / 261
Number of attempts: 3

PEP8 Python Wrapping Comments and Code - 190 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: 21
Best player score: 29
Position: #38 / 65
Number of attempts: 2

Reformat most common surnames - 691 entries

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

Best score: 23
Best player score: 25
Position: #59 / 205
Number of attempts: 4

Remember FizzBuzz? - 712 entries

Output FizzBuzz to 100. Start with nothing.

Best score: 39
Best player score: 59
Position: #103 / 187
Number of attempts: 5

Get rid of html tags - 383 entries

Want to read more about Vim's background? Then get rid of those html tags...

Best score: 15
Best player score: 26
Position: #209 / 224
Number of attempts: 1

Change the content of a string - 1541 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #100 / 577
Number of attempts: 2

Deleting folded text - 348 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: #37 / 115
Number of attempts: 5

Sort and add attributes - 1418 entries

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

Best score: 33
Best player score: 33
Position: #142 / 551
Number of attempts: 4

Add fold markers to a .c file - 604 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 43
Position: #144 / 179
Number of attempts: 1

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1467 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: 21
Position: #205 / 403
Number of attempts: 6

Braces or Brackets? - 958 entries

Someone forgot whether to use braces or brackets and you have to clean up their code!

Best score: 34
Best player score: 46
Position: #163 / 306
Number of attempts: 2

Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3569 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 22
Position: #296 / 770
Number of attempts: 13

Flodder-challenge - 1220 entries

Replace the text the most efficient and win!

Best score: 27
Best player score: 28
Position: #62 / 327
Number of attempts: 3

Simple text editing with Vim - 12627 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #1032 / 3653
Number of attempts: 4

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6825 entries

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

Best score: 28
Best player score: 36
Position: #437 / 1673
Number of attempts: 5

Tyler
Twitter: @tylerbindon

Professional Jiggerer and Pokerer.