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 - 33958 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 / 7498
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap values - 4693 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #464 / 1289
  • Number of attempts: 2
One number per line - 18889 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #1841 / 3898
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values inside brackets - 2545 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #151 / 591
  • Number of attempts: 2
V to the i - 4848 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1326 / 1907
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2927 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #32 / 865
  • Number of attempts: 4
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 348 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #10 / 74
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap the operands under comparison - 318 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #38 / 106
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10932 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1168 / 3091
  • Number of attempts: 1
Bad Copy Syntax - 2078 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #148 / 540
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2174 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #142 / 638
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3643 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #614 / 1181
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3988 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #380 / 908
  • Number of attempts: 4
Box it - 7997 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #233 / 1897
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1556 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 / 386
  • Number of attempts: 1
html paragraph to table - 634 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 55
  • Position: #54 / 130
  • Number of attempts: 3
From argument to object - 1552 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 / 469
  • Number of attempts: 1
Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 767 entries

Clean and group.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #75 / 180
  • Number of attempts: 2
Every other line - 2945 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #21 / 710
  • Number of attempts: 5
Copy three lines - 2909 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 / 644
  • Number of attempts: 4
Extract argument from function - 2392 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #211 / 765
  • Number of attempts: 1
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 557 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: #57 / 133
  • Number of attempts: 3
Number Sort - 321 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 / 171
  • Number of attempts: 1
comment and uncomment code inline - 1158 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 / 329
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11572 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2733 / 4240
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1858 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #180 / 594
  • Number of attempts: 2
Return the cow - 75 entries

This cow is too verbose. Give it a lesson.

  • Best score: 52
  • Best player score: 96
  • Position: #20 / 30
  • Number of attempts: 1
Missing Library and a Typo - 952 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: #141 / 222
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5731 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #707 / 1277
  • Number of attempts: 4
Adam's challenge - 1018 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 / 278
  • Number of attempts: 1
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 884 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 / 296
  • Number of attempts: 1
ninja substitution - 1436 entries

How can you reuse a previous substitution ?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #94 / 270
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vice versa - 7995 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #812 / 2151
  • Number of attempts: 2
Line under headers - 2093 entries

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

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #255 / 514
  • Number of attempts: 1
Greek Letters - 68 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: #17 / 26
  • Number of attempts: 1
convert yml into java pojo field - 873 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 / 231
  • Number of attempts: 3
Collect List - 4332 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #386 / 1196
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 16176 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #782 / 4216
  • Number of attempts: 6
Split the words - 372 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: #19 / 112
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10743 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1306 / 3710
  • Number of attempts: 1
attr_aligner - 3541 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #393 / 707
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letter case trickery - 1650 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: #63 / 521
  • Number of attempts: 1
quotes inside quotes - 3191 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 / 1088
  • Number of attempts: 3
Words in parens - 13024 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1257 / 3983
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 215 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #27 / 58
  • Number of attempts: 2
replacing each line of a block selection - 3040 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #108 / 785
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remember FizzBuzz? - 789 entries

Output FizzBuzz to 100. Start with nothing.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 50
  • Position: #58 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 8
Simple text editing with Vim - 13468 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1728 / 3865
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7564 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #496 / 1865
  • Number of attempts: 1
Roger Bongers
Twitter:

Programmer and super user

entered into 49 challenges

contributed 0 challenges