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 - 33100 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: 24
  • Position: #2884 / 7301
  • Number of attempts: 7
Swap values - 4500 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #699 / 1247
  • Number of attempts: 3
One number per line - 18480 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #831 / 3811
  • Number of attempts: 9
Separate the lines - 171 entries

Every other line is mixed up. Separate them into their original texts.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #71 / 87
  • Number of attempts: 1
V to the i - 4650 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #466 / 1863
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2113 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #452 / 625
  • Number of attempts: 2
From argument to object - 1441 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: #170 / 441
  • Number of attempts: 5
Every other line - 2856 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #177 / 691
  • Number of attempts: 7
Copy three lines - 2824 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #221 / 630
  • Number of attempts: 11
Array propagate - 318 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #83 / 114
  • Number of attempts: 1
Extract argument from function - 2267 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #346 / 736
  • Number of attempts: 7
Search and Replace 0 - 4743 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #819 / 1572
  • Number of attempts: 5
That hyphen - 2522 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #354 / 689
  • Number of attempts: 7
comment and uncomment code inline - 1037 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: #35 / 305
  • Number of attempts: 6
Just the middle - 11283 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2360 / 4140
  • Number of attempts: 5
Team names - 1790 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #328 / 575
  • Number of attempts: 3
Make HTML List - 997 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #125 / 265
  • Number of attempts: 9
Todo list specification - 368 entries

The every item on the todo list must be done today. Modify the list to reflect that.

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #97 / 169
  • Number of attempts: 1
For all cases. - 131 entries

In this case... change it! :) Watch the line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #22 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 2
Format java properties - 71 entries

Format java properties to a different format. The value which is the string following the first '=' cannot & should not change. All periods in the key get replaced with an underscore "_" and get a prefix of "b_".

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 57
  • Position: #32 / 32
  • Number of attempts: 1
Missing Library and a Typo - 838 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: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #29 / 206
  • Number of attempts: 3
Basic renumbering - 5486 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #463 / 1243
  • Number of attempts: 11
Simple addition - 301 entries

The right side of the equation is already there. We just need the left one now.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #92 / 112
  • Number of attempts: 1
Interactive git rebase changing commands - 158 entries

How to change the action of some commits in git rebase dialog.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #62 / 75
  • Number of attempts: 2
create arrows in a list - 92 entries

Add arrow at same distance

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #23 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 1
Adam's challenge - 928 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: 21
  • Position: #136 / 261
  • Number of attempts: 3
Create a table - 309 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #73 / 100
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 820 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: 14
  • Position: #171 / 280
  • Number of attempts: 5
Nesting SASS - 257 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #53 / 91
  • Number of attempts: 1
Combines all items - 292 entries

For each line that starts with the same number I want to combine its contents

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #108 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 2
replace 2nd column blanks with values in same column if blank - 226 entries

Where ,SOMELOGB and ,SOMELOGC replaces each /r carriage return if 2nd column is blank. The replace only happens if 2nd column is blank though and should replace up to the non blank row.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #56 / 78
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vice versa - 7627 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #756 / 2067
  • Number of attempts: 5
Paragraph sort - 421 entries

My large herbivorous mammals, Vim commands, and POSIX utilities need to be sorted separately.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #89 / 122
  • Number of attempts: 3
Order and join - 913 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #106 / 248
  • Number of attempts: 7
Paragraph breaks - 497 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #128 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 3
comments galore - 982 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #219 / 414
  • Number of attempts: 2
Scrambled numbers - 775 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #139 / 181
  • Number of attempts: 2
Alsa configuration - 485 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #90 / 123
  • Number of attempts: 2
Align commas - 1046 entries

There are 15,000 aligning challenges on vimgolf.com, and they're all exactly the same. I hope this one is a little different.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #181 / 238
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hello ${world} - 298 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #57 / 93
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add Go XML to structure tags - 151 entries

The Go programming language can directly map XML to structure fields. Add the correct XML tag after each field.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #27 / 65
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array transposition - 2321 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #180 / 434
  • Number of attempts: 3
Mirror Symmetry - 787 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #109 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 3
From A to B - 562 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #129 / 154
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4212 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #712 / 1176
  • Number of attempts: 5
camel riding - 757 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #131 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1602 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #70 / 436
  • Number of attempts: 9
Fix the XML - 962 entries

The challenge consists in having a valid xml from an incomplete source.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #166 / 280
  • Number of attempts: 6
I forgot quotes - 15840 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2158 / 4133
  • Number of attempts: 6
learn vim in short time - 222 entries

so happy to learn vim.because vim is awesome

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #94 / 153
  • Number of attempts: 2
-a-b-c- - 3142 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #645 / 1120
  • Number of attempts: 4
Gray area - 712 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #21 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 5
Don't know what this is - 1959 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: 12
  • Position: #202 / 574
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10564 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #2167 / 3646
  • Number of attempts: 4
attr_aligner - 3403 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #485 / 686
  • Number of attempts: 4
Letter case trickery - 1580 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: 13
  • Position: #401 / 506
  • Number of attempts: 3
quotes inside quotes - 3077 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: #627 / 1057
  • Number of attempts: 4
Change The Perspective - 36 entries

This is a go game recodes file(.sgf file, refer to http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/). It base on such a coordinate system: in vertical direction, is from top(farthest end) to bottom, mark as a,b,c,...，s(19*19 board); in horizontal direction, is from left to right, uses the same notations. For Example, the coordinate notation 'cq', is the position at the bottom-left corner(vertical coordinate first). The record is from one player's perspective. We need to change to another's, but we don't want to change coordinate system, let it keep top to bottom and left to right. so we have to change the coordinates, a <-> s, b <-> r,c <-> q, etc. the Position 'cq', as transformation, it will be 'qd'.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #18 / 22
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12788 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2374 / 3930
  • Number of attempts: 4
A simple change - 429 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #35 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 4
lamb had a little Mary - 569 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #116 / 159
  • Number of attempts: 1
Saving the hashes(#) - 1973 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: 21
  • Position: #110 / 468
  • Number of attempts: 8
Vertical Limit - 2389 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #651 / 724
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 2883 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #191 / 756
  • Number of attempts: 11
Switch function arguments - 2002 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #289 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 8
Remove semicolons after expressions - 580 entries

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

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #211 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 4996 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #456 / 1723
  • Number of attempts: 8
Make it more readable - 1928 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #294 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 3
Shebangs for all - 1804 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: 17
  • Position: #340 / 475
  • Number of attempts: 4
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3103 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #490 / 689
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple text editing with Vim - 11865 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #1544 / 3472
  • Number of attempts: 7
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6225 entries

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

  • Best score: 32
  • Best player score: 58
  • Position: #1410 / 1533
  • Number of attempts: 2

Contributed Challenges

Nesting SASS - 257 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

Brian Hall
Twitter:

Merciless optimizer, command line evangelist, amateur dog trainer

entered into 72 challenges

contributed 1 challenges