VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33086 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: #1722 / 7297
Number of attempts: 5

Swap values - 4490 entries

Well, swap the values...

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #264 / 1246
Number of attempts: 5

One number per line - 18472 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #508 / 3807
Number of attempts: 8

Swap values inside brackets - 2441 entries

Easy challenge.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #28 / 564
Number of attempts: 6

V to the i - 4647 entries

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

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #642 / 1861
Number of attempts: 2

Applying same text modification in several lines - 2779 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 13
Position: #123 / 823
Number of attempts: 3

Swap the operands under comparison - 266 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #16 / 96
Number of attempts: 5

Split line with dots - 2113 entries

This line is too long, split it.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 21
Position: #433 / 625
Number of attempts: 2

remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3483 entries

easy stuff

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #578 / 1128
Number of attempts: 3

Com(m)a Trouble - 3478 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #29 / 780
Number of attempts: 11

Box it - 7722 entries

Create a box around a line.

Best score: 21
Best player score: 23
Position: #593 / 1842
Number of attempts: 6

Triangular Numbers - 88 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #10 / 25
Number of attempts: 4

Cool or not? - 765 entries

abc trying to be cool or not...

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 218
Number of attempts: 6

multiple cursor alternative - 1452 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: 19
Position: #68 / 371
Number of attempts: 10

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: 17
Position: #107 / 441
Number of attempts: 3

Two pairs of cluster of letters creates word - 718 entries

Clean and group.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #16 / 169
Number of attempts: 10

Every other line - 2850 entries

AaAaAaA

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #34 / 690
Number of attempts: 6

Copy three lines - 2819 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #121 / 629
Number of attempts: 7

Convert Application Output to CSV - 180 entries

Change the application output to comma-separated values

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #17 / 50
Number of attempts: 3

Array propagate - 318 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

Best score: 23
Best player score: 24
Position: #39 / 114
Number of attempts: 6

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: #364 / 736
Number of attempts: 3

Search and Replace 0 - 4730 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #569 / 1565
Number of attempts: 3

Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 510 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: 30
Position: #8 / 122
Number of attempts: 8

Number Sort - 298 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: #102 / 158
Number of attempts: 1

That hyphen - 2520 entries

"vim vi improved"

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #200 / 688
Number of attempts: 6

comment and uncomment code inline - 1033 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: #112 / 303
Number of attempts: 3

Flip the bit - 113 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

Best score: 8
Best player score: 8
Position: #19 / 66
Number of attempts: 2

Just the middle - 11284 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #1219 / 4140
Number of attempts: 4

Team names - 1789 entries

The team names are misspelled.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #218 / 574
Number of attempts: 5

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: 37
Position: #71 / 169
Number of attempts: 1

Python Hello World! Reformatting - 916 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: #177 / 358
Number of attempts: 2

Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 245 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

Best score: 7
Best player score: 8
Position: #103 / 131
Number of attempts: 1

Stairstep digits - 362 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #39 / 136
Number of attempts: 4

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: #80 / 206
Number of attempts: 4

Basic renumbering - 5484 entries

Renumbering Basic.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #165 / 1241
Number of attempts: 7

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: 12
Position: #43 / 112
Number of attempts: 6

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: 15
Position: #52 / 75
Number of attempts: 2

Adam's challenge - 922 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: #76 / 260
Number of attempts: 8

Create a table - 309 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #35 / 100
Number of attempts: 4

Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 809 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: #126 / 277
Number of attempts: 3

Nesting SASS - 257 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #40 / 91
Number of attempts: 5

Combines all items - 290 entries

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

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #69 / 131
Number of attempts: 3

Wrap text in quotes - 348 entries

All the blocks of text should be wrapped in quotation marks.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #39 / 119
Number of attempts: 3

Vice versa - 7615 entries

Little role switching.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #453 / 2064
Number of attempts: 6

C Reformatting - 687 entries

You may use Visual mode... or not. #uppercase

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #17 / 160
Number of attempts: 12

Paragraph sort - 421 entries

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

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #33 / 122
Number of attempts: 4

Order and join - 913 entries

There's something special about the input order.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #61 / 248
Number of attempts: 4

Paragraph breaks - 497 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #35 / 163
Number of attempts: 3

Replace and keep the case - 405 entries

Replace all instance of plugin and Plugin to device and Device.

Best score: 26
Best player score: 26
Position: #45 / 114
Number of attempts: 5

Alsa configuration - 485 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

Best score: 22
Best player score: 27
Position: #73 / 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: 11
Position: #77 / 238
Number of attempts: 15

Generate a list of numbers - 280 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #52 / 134
Number of attempts: 3

One to Ten - 2119 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: #86 / 648
Number of attempts: 3

Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 611 entries

Change the middle part of the function name in multiple places, preferably using the next and dot commands.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 14
Position: #28 / 196
Number of attempts: 3

Build a six - 267 entries

Just enjoy building "a" floors...

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #32 / 89
Number of attempts: 3

Increment each number - 958 entries

Increment each number individually by one

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #20 / 237
Number of attempts: 9

Delete to the end of the current line - 718 entries

Delete to the end of the current line, but keep the character under the cursor.

Best score: 5
Best player score: 5
Position: #114 / 352
Number of attempts: 1

move titles next to url, in quotes - 496 entries

had trouble with something similar

Best score: 19
Best player score: 21
Position: #47 / 130
Number of attempts: 3

Array transposition - 2321 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 17
Position: #133 / 434
Number of attempts: 15

convert yml into java pojo field - 825 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: #62 / 221
Number of attempts: 3

Mirror Symmetry - 787 entries

Add backslashes.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #82 / 264
Number of attempts: 8

unknown command - 149 entries

I want change 5 words

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #45 / 76
Number of attempts: 1

Collect List - 4207 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #418 / 1174
Number of attempts: 5

VimGolfNight - 517 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #265 / 337
Number of attempts: 5

Space out the alphabet - 1602 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #93 / 436
Number of attempts: 7

Fix the XML - 962 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #55 / 280
Number of attempts: 8

Condensed Cases - 772 entries

Apple's new programming language, Swift, allows two style of case statements: 1) one Enum case on each line, or 2) multiple Enum cases on a single line. Convert the following from the first case (no pun intended) to the second type.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #54 / 237
Number of attempts: 5

Happy TvvO - 394 entries

Don’t forget the past, learn from it. Happy New Year.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #136 / 196
Number of attempts: 3

I forgot quotes - 15830 entries

Oops.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #851 / 4130
Number of attempts: 6

-a-b-c- - 3135 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #250 / 1118
Number of attempts: 3

Count both ways - 982 entries

Right AND down.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #49 / 346
Number of attempts: 5

Lisp Condense - 432 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #48 / 152
Number of attempts: 7

Gray area - 712 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #23 / 264
Number of attempts: 5

Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1107 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #68 / 292
Number of attempts: 13

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: 11
Position: #110 / 574
Number of attempts: 9

Two become one - 706 entries

We have two c arrays and want to make one two dimensional out of it. Can we do that?

Best score: 25
Best player score: 25
Position: #6 / 204
Number of attempts: 7

Where should I put the Newline? - 849 entries

Help me put the newline.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #204 / 425
Number of attempts: 3

Mess in revision history - 1151 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 17
Position: #55 / 244
Number of attempts: 8

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10562 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #1375 / 3646
Number of attempts: 3

attr_aligner - 3403 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #151 / 686
Number of attempts: 14

Letter case trickery - 1570 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: 9
Position: #25 / 504
Number of attempts: 8

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: 14
Position: #310 / 1057
Number of attempts: 4

Words in parens - 12786 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 14
Position: #960 / 3928
Number of attempts: 3

Resort and deup a CSV list - 135 entries

I'm always adding items to a sorted list. There has to be a better way dedup and resort the lists. There are multiple lists with varying lengths to discourage manual sorting. Also Australia's animals are weird.

Best score: 44
Best player score: 44
Position: #5 / 37
Number of attempts: 5

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1527 entries

Oh no, this line is longer than 80 chars... put each 'vim' on a new line.

Best score: 8
Best player score: 8
Position: #99 / 429
Number of attempts: 7

Array Transposition - 169 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

Best score: 27
Best player score: 28
Position: #9 / 51
Number of attempts: 5

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: 20
Position: #58 / 468
Number of attempts: 8

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1044 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 7
Position: #119 / 427
Number of attempts: 2

Vertical Limit - 2386 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 21
Position: #75 / 723
Number of attempts: 6

Exchanging Quotes - 800 entries

Sometimes you need to exchange a choice of quotes in some code.

Best score: 30
Best player score: 30
Position: #10 / 220
Number of attempts: 10

Switch function arguments - 1996 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #162 / 632
Number of attempts: 6

Append semicolon after expressions - 975 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #117 / 394
Number of attempts: 2

Remove noise from HTTP log - 668 entries

This piece of log (from the year 2000) contains some irrelevant data. We only want to see the HTTP method and resource.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #125 / 264
Number of attempts: 2

switch variable - 4980 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #542 / 1717
Number of attempts: 5

Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 926 entries

convert an ugly spreadsheet copy/paste into a CSV format.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 19
Position: #8 / 179
Number of attempts: 14

Make it more readable - 1925 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #93 / 633
Number of attempts: 5

remove dupes from array - 1324 entries

given a random string that contains a ruby-esque array, make sure that there are no duplicate elements

Best score: 17
Best player score: 48
Position: #318 / 328
Number of attempts: 1

HTML to Haml - 837 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

Best score: 23
Best player score: 23
Position: #9 / 200
Number of attempts: 23

Numbering a List - 1838 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #39 / 631
Number of attempts: 1

Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1177 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: #90 / 387
Number of attempts: 3

Assignment Alignment - 823 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #48 / 214
Number of attempts: 11

Shebangs for all - 1789 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: 11
Position: #52 / 472
Number of attempts: 5

A Simple One - 968 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: #492 / 629
Number of attempts: 2

Reverse Simple Deletion - 811 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #42 / 445
Number of attempts: 2

The Cake is a Lie - 1250 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #247 / 500
Number of attempts: 2

Make Fancy Header - 991 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #115 / 334
Number of attempts: 7

Change the content of a string - 1405 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #179 / 535
Number of attempts: 2

Sort and add attributes - 1241 entries

Sort the states and add the attribute country to each record.

Best score: 33
Best player score: 33
Position: #216 / 500
Number of attempts: 1

Reconstruct the Sentence - 1201 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: 20
Position: #108 / 354
Number of attempts: 6

Simple text editing with Vim - 11822 entries

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

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #577 / 3461
Number of attempts: 4

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6195 entries

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

Best score: 32
Best player score: 52
Position: #1325 / 1525
Number of attempts: 2