VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

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

Wrap the text of an email message to 79 characters - 576 entries

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

Best score: 5
Best player score: 5
Position: #46 / 352
Number of attempts: 1

Search and Replace 0 - 4651 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 15
Position: #1026 / 1541
Number of attempts: 2

Python Hello World! Reformatting - 897 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: 43
Position: #134 / 350
Number of attempts: 4

formatted text to markdown - 180 entries

You're converting some posts from an old blog to markdown. The formatted text is far closer to the finished product than the html markup, so it seems like a good place to start. Word wrapping seems to be the main area for optimization.

Best score: 70
Best player score: 77
Position: #28 / 65
Number of attempts: 1

imports alignment (python) - 640 entries

Align as one import per line.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 27
Position: #132 / 191
Number of attempts: 2

Before there was Farmville... - 95 entries

There was old MacDonald. For my toddler. The first Vim sing-a-long?

Best score: 156
Best player score: 239
Position: #35 / 46
Number of attempts: 4

HTML to Haml - 800 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 31
Position: #65 / 197
Number of attempts: 6

expand a list comprehension (python) - 276 entries

Please show your way to convert a list comprehension in python to an ordinary for-loop expression!

Best score: 42
Best player score: 50
Position: #36 / 103
Number of attempts: 1

Generate English Alphabets - 438 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 25
Position: #87 / 194
Number of attempts: 2

Numbering a List - 1828 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 20
Position: #264 / 625
Number of attempts: 2

Getters & Setters: Java - 190 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: 132
Position: #39 / 54
Number of attempts: 4

Java Array2List - 218 entries

Convert an java array initializer into a list.

Best score: 67
Best player score: 89
Position: #29 / 82
Number of attempts: 4

The holy-grail may help - 315 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #70 / 194
Number of attempts: 1

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1157 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: #17 / 382
Number of attempts: 6

Assignment Alignment - 770 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 31
Position: #164 / 210
Number of attempts: 2

Shebangs for all - 1771 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: #89 / 467
Number of attempts: 6

A Simple One - 923 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: #162 / 611
Number of attempts: 1

Table Reshuffle - 349 entries

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

Best score: 22
Best player score: 29
Position: #53 / 127
Number of attempts: 6

Reverse and count - 410 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: 24
Position: #50 / 157
Number of attempts: 5

Ruby 1.9 compat - 590 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: 15
Position: #90 / 225
Number of attempts: 4

Reverse Simple Deletion - 758 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 21
Position: #420 / 429
Number of attempts: 3

Increment, increment, increment.... - 567 entries

Vim likes macros

Best score: 10
Best player score: 12
Position: #157 / 370
Number of attempts: 2

Turn this csv list into queries - 192 entries

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

Best score: 98
Best player score: 119
Position: #43 / 92
Number of attempts: 1

The Cake is a Lie - 1197 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #297 / 487
Number of attempts: 4

Fix the Haiku - 261 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: 50
Position: #91 / 105
Number of attempts: 2

Context insensitive completion 0 - 468 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: 7
Best player score: 9
Position: #164 / 221
Number of attempts: 2

Context Insensitive completion 1 - 427 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #56 / 222
Number of attempts: 1

Reformat some Python - 554 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

Best score: 34
Best player score: 39
Position: #77 / 221
Number of attempts: 3

Reformat a C golf submission - 522 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: 28
Position: #50 / 193
Number of attempts: 5

Reverse characters in a line - 645 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: #133 / 236
Number of attempts: 1

Change the content of a string - 1346 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 23
Position: #211 / 520
Number of attempts: 3

Add fold markers to a .c file - 481 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 51
Position: #143 / 157
Number of attempts: 1

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1141 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: 26
Position: #304 / 346
Number of attempts: 1

Braces or Brackets? - 710 entries

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

Best score: 34
Best player score: 48
Position: #157 / 253
Number of attempts: 1

Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 2979 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 22
Position: #210 / 663
Number of attempts: 5

Simple text editing with Vim - 11624 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 17
Position: #2161 / 3410
Number of attempts: 2

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6004 entries

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

Best score: 32
Best player score: 38
Position: #545 / 1480
Number of attempts: 3

Contributed Challenges

Rotating Philosophers Problem - 376 entries

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

Eivind Jahren
Twitter: @HaskellElephant

entered into 37 challenges

contributed 1 challenges