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 - 33616 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: 29
  • Position: #4593 / 7420
  • Number of attempts: 1
Swap values - 4616 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #791 / 1268
  • Number of attempts: 1
One number per line - 18727 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #2802 / 3864
  • Number of attempts: 2
vim = 22 / 7 - 475 entries

pi square vim

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #119 / 135
  • Number of attempts: 1
V to the i - 4802 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #852 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 4
Extract argument from function - 2357 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #582 / 753
  • Number of attempts: 2
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 994 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: 47
  • Position: #317 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 3
Basic renumbering - 5648 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #955 / 1264
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fun With The Diagonal - 107 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #29 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7907 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1537 / 2128
  • Number of attempts: 4
Free hyphen! - 169 entries

Just like "Inner hyphens", but I'm giving you a free hyphen to play with. Will your solution be any different?

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #55 / 89
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sorting a glossary - 131 entries

Sort a glossary. Glossary head contains a header phrase ending with ':' and glossary body has multi line text indented with a tab.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #21 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 2
Alsa configuration - 513 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #112 / 128
  • Number of attempts: 1
Create bison tokens - 47 entries

Create tokens for bison out of a known list of words

  • Best score: 85
  • Best player score: 110
  • Position: #15 / 18
  • Number of attempts: 2
Manual SQL - 160 entries

Change select and insert queries to simulate inserting a new record.

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 81
  • Position: #45 / 50
  • Number of attempts: 1
Swap assigned value - 647 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #224 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #1140 / 1190
  • Number of attempts: 1
VimGolfNight - 560 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #191 / 347
  • Number of attempts: 1
Logging with key - 328 entries

Sometimes it is better to log with meaningful key

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #67 / 88
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 15983 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2507 / 4180
  • Number of attempts: 5
Subtraction - 180 entries

Solve the equations.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #47 / 62
  • Number of attempts: 1
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 253 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #100 / 116
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change name of a variable - 179 entries

Replace the name of the $variable with the fastest move possible. The challenge is having a command that allow you to easily change the variable name even if its indented.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #56 / 137
  • Number of attempts: 1
Lisp Condense - 460 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #109 / 158
  • Number of attempts: 2
120 Degrees - 493 entries

Rotate that triangle.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #109 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 2
Neither Fizz nor Buzz - 253 entries

Not your regular increment macro! The gaps are tricky.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #87 / 103
  • Number of attempts: 1
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1158 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #243 / 300
  • Number of attempts: 1
Don't know what this is - 2022 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: #445 / 585
  • Number of attempts: 1
Two become one - 713 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: 37
  • Position: #171 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 1
Where should I put the Newline? - 881 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #297 / 437
  • Number of attempts: 1
Mess in revision history - 1184 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #203 / 250
  • Number of attempts: 2
Shuffle puzzle - 346 entries

Sort the lines in each indent group, and sort the groups. That's the pattern. Or just move lines around manually to get a better score.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #90 / 104
  • Number of attempts: 2
Going underground.... - 356 entries

Simple reformatting: in this case changing from the format London underground supplies its customers with, to the format that Google Calendar likes...

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #84 / 128
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split the words - 368 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: 41
  • Position: #93 / 111
  • Number of attempts: 1
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #2975 / 3683
  • Number of attempts: 1
attr_aligner - 3520 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #324 / 702
  • Number of attempts: 2
Counting in binary - 526 entries

"a" represents 0; "A" represents 1. Start from zero and count to 15.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 46
  • Position: #93 / 117
  • Number of attempts: 2
Letter case trickery - 1630 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: 11
  • Position: #276 / 518
  • Number of attempts: 5
quotes inside quotes - 3159 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: 17
  • Position: #841 / 1078
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12935 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #3432 / 3963
  • Number of attempts: 1
Delete unwanted lines - 411 entries

Delete all lines which does not end in "o.."

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #139 / 229
  • Number of attempts: 2
Minimalist Limerick - 520 entries

Reproduce this lovely poem.

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 39
  • Position: #127 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 1
Groups magic - 158 entries

Regexp or macros for string converting: (a) -> ___ (abc) -> ____ (abcd) -> ______ All in the '(' replace to _ multiply by char count + ()

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #81 / 93
  • Number of attempts: 1
Prefixes and suffixes - 635 entries

Generate all prefixes of "vimchallenge", then all suffixes.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #125 / 201
  • Number of attempts: 1
A simple change - 461 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #181 / 191
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Vim - 420 entries

Someone has vandalized this text file and replaced the beginning character of one word in each line with a Big "X." Please remove the big X's, and fix each line to read "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog."

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #140 / 192
  • Number of attempts: 2
The name of the game - 665 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #312 / 360
  • Number of attempts: 2
lamb had a little Mary - 609 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 48
  • Position: #157 / 168
  • Number of attempts: 1
Saving the hashes(#) - 2063 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: 88
  • Position: #477 / 480
  • Number of attempts: 1
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1118 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #69 / 445
  • Number of attempts: 5
Vertical Limit - 2538 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #714 / 754
  • Number of attempts: 1
Exchanging Quotes - 858 entries

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

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 43
  • Position: #203 / 230
  • Number of attempts: 2
replacing each line of a block selection - 2999 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #539 / 777
  • Number of attempts: 2
Switch function arguments - 2139 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #564 / 663
  • Number of attempts: 1
Append semicolon after expressions - 1056 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #331 / 419
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse and double space - 500 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #163 / 199
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove noise from HTTP log - 717 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: #93 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 6
Remove semicolons after expressions - 654 entries

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

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #216 / 263
  • Number of attempts: 4
switch variable - 5071 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #1148 / 1748
  • Number of attempts: 1
The meaning - 575 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #233 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 2
Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1009 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 58
  • Position: #175 / 193
  • Number of attempts: 2
remove dupes from array - 1358 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: 27
  • Position: #279 / 336
  • Number of attempts: 1
HTML to Haml - 878 entries

Help convert this HTML page to Haml.

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 132
  • Position: #203 / 204
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1931 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #539 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 3
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1244 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: 17
  • Position: #329 / 406
  • Number of attempts: 2
Shebangs for all - 1999 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: 19
  • Position: #399 / 516
  • Number of attempts: 2
A Simple One - 1050 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: #390 / 664
  • Number of attempts: 1
Another Mixed-Up Haiku - 265 entries

VimGolf ... a perfect evening?

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #73 / 90
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse Simple Deletion - 847 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #23 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 4
The Cake is a Lie - 1346 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #187 / 527
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make Fancy Header - 1052 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #306 / 344
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change the content of a string - 1580 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #293 / 588
  • Number of attempts: 3
Sort and add attributes - 1451 entries

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

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #452 / 563
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reconstruct the Sentence - 1507 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: 25
  • Position: #339 / 412
  • Number of attempts: 1
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3665 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #511 / 787
  • Number of attempts: 2
Flodder-challenge - 1262 entries

Replace the text the most efficient and win!

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 42
  • Position: #262 / 335
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 12811 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #2605 / 3694
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6982 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 52
  • Position: #1437 / 1706
  • Number of attempts: 1
Tj
Twitter:

Grace and Joyce

entered into 78 challenges

contributed 0 challenges