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 - 34021 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: #1475 / 7517
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap values - 4707 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #464 / 1294
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18903 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #1843 / 3904
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values inside brackets - 2551 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #151 / 594
  • Number of attempts: 2
V to the i - 4885 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1328 / 1915
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2931 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #32 / 867
  • Number of attempts: 4
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 365 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #10 / 76
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap the operands under comparison - 325 entries

Swap the operands under comparison to prevent null pointer exception (at least in java)

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #38 / 108
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10956 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1170 / 3098
  • Number of attempts: 1
Bad Copy Syntax - 2088 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #148 / 543
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2175 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #142 / 639
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3652 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #614 / 1185
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3993 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #381 / 910
  • Number of attempts: 4
Box it - 8003 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #233 / 1901
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1592 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: #157 / 388
  • Number of attempts: 1
html paragraph to table - 635 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 55
  • Position: #54 / 131
  • Number of attempts: 3
From argument to object - 1566 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: 18
  • Position: #242 / 471
  • Number of attempts: 1
Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 773 entries

Clean and group.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #75 / 182
  • Number of attempts: 2
Every other line - 2951 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #21 / 712
  • Number of attempts: 5
Copy three lines - 2924 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #237 / 647
  • Number of attempts: 4
Extract argument from function - 2429 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #211 / 773
  • Number of attempts: 1
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 584 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: 34
  • Position: #59 / 135
  • Number of attempts: 3
Number Sort - 328 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: #74 / 173
  • Number of attempts: 1
comment and uncomment code inline - 1182 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: #103 / 332
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11620 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2735 / 4258
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1861 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #180 / 596
  • Number of attempts: 2
Return the cow - 81 entries

This cow is too verbose. Give it a lesson.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 96
  • Position: #21 / 32
  • Number of attempts: 1
Missing Library and a Typo - 954 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: 18
  • Position: #142 / 223
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5737 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #710 / 1281
  • Number of attempts: 4
Adam's challenge - 1043 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: #69 / 281
  • Number of attempts: 1
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 886 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: #118 / 297
  • Number of attempts: 1
ninja substitution - 1439 entries

How can you reuse a previous substitution ?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #94 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vice versa - 8021 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #814 / 2158
  • Number of attempts: 2
Line under headers - 2095 entries

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

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #256 / 515
  • Number of attempts: 1
Greek Letters - 80 entries

Starting with a list of Greek letters, create a cross-reference table showing all of the Greek alpha-beta. You'll likely need to use digraphs (:help digraphs). Note that while most digraphs can be entered with either character first, lowercase sigma has two digraphs -- s* AND *s! Good luck!

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 91
  • Position: #18 / 27
  • Number of attempts: 1
convert yml into java pojo field - 879 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: #32 / 233
  • Number of attempts: 3
Collect List - 4342 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #386 / 1200
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 16239 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #782 / 4225
  • Number of attempts: 6
Split the words - 399 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: 22
  • Position: #20 / 115
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10758 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1306 / 3717
  • Number of attempts: 1
attr_aligner - 3568 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #396 / 711
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letter case trickery - 1688 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: #65 / 526
  • Number of attempts: 1
quotes inside quotes - 3203 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: #59 / 1094
  • Number of attempts: 3
Words in parens - 13054 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1262 / 3991
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 216 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #27 / 59
  • Number of attempts: 2
replacing each line of a block selection - 3068 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #108 / 789
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remember FizzBuzz? - 826 entries

Output FizzBuzz to 100. Start with nothing.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #61 / 210
  • Number of attempts: 8
Simple text editing with Vim - 13645 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1739 / 3907
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7694 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #506 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 1
Roger Bongers
Twitter:

Programmer and super user

entered into 49 challenges

contributed 0 challenges