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 - 33866 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: 28
  • Position: #4451 / 7474
  • Number of attempts: 3
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6366 entries

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

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #668 / 1555
  • Number of attempts: 7
One number per line - 18831 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #798 / 3889
  • Number of attempts: 11
Swap values inside brackets - 2523 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #189 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 7
Unsemantic linewrapping - 934 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: 10
  • Position: #120 / 233
  • Number of attempts: 7
V to the i - 4830 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1405 / 1903
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add semicolons - 10916 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #992 / 3085
  • Number of attempts: 5
Split line with dots - 2156 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #558 / 636
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3622 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #657 / 1177
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3941 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #809 / 892
  • Number of attempts: 2
Box it - 7962 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #885 / 1891
  • Number of attempts: 8
multiple cursor alternative - 1547 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: 35
  • Position: #360 / 385
  • Number of attempts: 3
html paragraph to table - 612 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 69
  • Position: #95 / 128
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2925 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #574 / 707
  • Number of attempts: 2
Copy three lines - 2882 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #133 / 642
  • Number of attempts: 8
Extract argument from function - 2376 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #738 / 759
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2602 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #587 / 704
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11541 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2918 / 4230
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7974 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1431 / 2146
  • Number of attempts: 2
One to Ten - 2241 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: #161 / 682
  • Number of attempts: 6
Collect List - 4317 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1084 / 1194
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 16093 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #3052 / 4202
  • Number of attempts: 3
-a-b-c- - 3225 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #717 / 1140
  • Number of attempts: 3
Don't know what this is - 2025 entries

Replace contents of brackets with matching number of spaces. Don't ask what the format's supposed to be.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #537 / 587
  • Number of attempts: 2
Letter case trickery - 1644 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: 14
  • Position: #428 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 1
quotes inside quotes - 3185 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: #658 / 1086
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2596 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #741 / 767
  • Number of attempts: 1
switch variable - 5094 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1441 / 1754
  • Number of attempts: 1
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3852 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #482 / 829
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple text editing with Vim - 13262 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1811 / 3810
  • Number of attempts: 10
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7389 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #1089 / 1825
  • Number of attempts: 2
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entered into 31 challenges

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