VimGolf - real Vim ninjas count every keystroke!

Played Challenges

Simple, Practical, and Common - 33617 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: #971 / 7421
Number of attempts: 12

Swap values - 4616 entries

Well, swap the values...

Best score: 11
Best player score: 15
Position: #881 / 1268
Number of attempts: 2

One number per line - 18727 entries

Just give me the numbers.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 19
Position: #1607 / 3864
Number of attempts: 4

Wget failed to download redirections - 202 entries

Output of a wget session, where 302 where not properly handled due to certificate problems, has been saved to a file. Keep the correct URLs to start again downloading.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 18
Position: #33 / 65
Number of attempts: 4

Separate the lines - 182 entries

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

Best score: 11
Best player score: 14
Position: #64 / 92
Number of attempts: 1

Split line with dots - 2144 entries

This line is too long, split it.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 17
Position: #241 / 634
Number of attempts: 2

multiple cursor alternative - 1519 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: 25
Position: #302 / 380
Number of attempts: 4

From argument to object - 1508 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: 22
Position: #388 / 458
Number of attempts: 1

Every other line - 2910 entries

AaAaAaA

Best score: 12
Best player score: 15
Position: #337 / 703
Number of attempts: 5

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: #619 / 753
Number of attempts: 1

Search and Replace 0 - 4989 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #440 / 1624
Number of attempts: 3

That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #123 / 701
Number of attempts: 5

comment and uncomment code inline - 1122 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: 10
Position: #176 / 322
Number of attempts: 3

Just the middle - 11454 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 8
Position: #2184 / 4197
Number of attempts: 1

Team names - 1836 entries

The team names are misspelled.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 16
Position: #1 / 588
Number of attempts: 5

Make HTML List - 1050 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

Best score: 33
Best player score: 46
Position: #138 / 273
Number of attempts: 4

Un"finnish"ed Work - 116 entries

Replace å by a, ä by a and ö by o.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 15
Position: #30 / 60
Number of attempts: 1

Todo list specification - 399 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: #14 / 179
Number of attempts: 2

Sort yaml structures alphabetically by root key names - 49 entries

sometimes we want to sort structures alphabetically in yaml files

Best score: 31
Best player score: 91
Position: #20 / 20
Number of attempts: 1

Text to HTML Table - 180 entries

Turn the plain text table to an HTML table.

Best score: 52
Best player score: 52
Position: #13 / 53
Number of attempts: 4

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: 41
Position: #73 / 380
Number of attempts: 5

Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 261 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

Best score: 7
Best player score: 8
Position: #64 / 141
Number of attempts: 1

Back to the roots - 63 entries

Johnny has a file with more integers. He wants to change each number with its square root. Can you help him?

Best score: 20
Best player score: 23
Position: #20 / 38
Number of attempts: 1

Missing Library and a Typo - 887 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: 14
Best player score: 23
Position: #182 / 213
Number of attempts: 2

Basic renumbering - 5648 entries

Renumbering Basic.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 16
Position: #555 / 1264
Number of attempts: 5

Simple addition - 326 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: #100 / 122
Number of attempts: 1

Hidden Message - 93 entries

Find the hidden message and replace all other characters with spaces.

Best score: 33
Best player score: 45
Position: #23 / 30
Number of attempts: 1

create arrows in a list - 117 entries

Add arrow at same distance

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #40 / 73
Number of attempts: 1

Adam's challenge - 984 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: #35 / 270
Number of attempts: 5

Create Leading Zeros - 241 entries

Create leading zeros only for id columns. Please use generic approach!

Best score: 23
Best player score: 44
Position: #61 / 82
Number of attempts: 2

42-header - 43 entries

Rush 42mexican-standoff at 42 school

Best score: 22
Best player score: 22
Position: #3 / 16
Number of attempts: 7

Create a table - 332 entries

Convert the given input into a formatted table

Best score: 16
Best player score: 18
Position: #68 / 105
Number of attempts: 2

Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 865 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: #82 / 291
Number of attempts: 2

Combines all items - 313 entries

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

Best score: 9
Best player score: 10
Position: #123 / 140
Number of attempts: 1

replace 2nd column blanks with values in same column if blank - 242 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: 18
Position: #66 / 83
Number of attempts: 1

Vice versa - 7907 entries

Little role switching.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 13
Position: #731 / 2128
Number of attempts: 5

Pretty multi-line bash - 235 entries

Bash line continuations are much prettier when they're column aligned.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 21
Position: #44 / 77
Number of attempts: 3

C Reformatting - 690 entries

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

Best score: 30
Best player score: 47
Position: #80 / 163
Number of attempts: 4

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: #43 / 81
Number of attempts: 2

Order and join - 983 entries

There's something special about the input order.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 11
Position: #114 / 259
Number of attempts: 4

Paragraph breaks - 522 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 11
Position: #75 / 167
Number of attempts: 2

comments galore - 1045 entries

Basic comment reformatting

Best score: 10
Best player score: 10
Position: #164 / 424
Number of attempts: 2

Replace and keep the case - 437 entries

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

Best score: 26
Best player score: 29
Position: #77 / 118
Number of attempts: 3

Change attribute to getter - 140 entries

Wrap attributes with a getter method.

Best score: 24
Best player score: 25
Position: #39 / 59
Number of attempts: 2

Scrambled numbers - 807 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 23
Position: #88 / 184
Number of attempts: 6

Alsa configuration - 513 entries

I'm tweaking my ~/.asoundrc file!

Best score: 22
Best player score: 23
Position: #58 / 128
Number of attempts: 7

Align commas - 1095 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: 17
Position: #165 / 246
Number of attempts: 4

Manual SQL - 160 entries

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

Best score: 48
Best player score: 65
Position: #29 / 50
Number of attempts: 5

mp3 - Cutlist - 42 entries

An audio CD was accidentally ripped into one single mp3 file. A dummy cue-file now needs to be filled out with the correct values to get single mp3 files.

Best score: 65
Best player score: 115
Position: #8 / 14
Number of attempts: 1

Hello ${world} - 324 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

Best score: 24
Best player score: 27
Position: #55 / 96
Number of attempts: 4

Array transposition - 2417 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 18
Position: #191 / 448
Number of attempts: 10

Mirror Symmetry - 822 entries

Add backslashes.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 13
Position: #215 / 269
Number of attempts: 2

From A to B - 591 entries

Mirror and change this text block

Best score: 16
Best player score: 21
Position: #124 / 159
Number of attempts: 3

Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #210 / 1190
Number of attempts: 9

camel riding - 793 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

Best score: 15
Best player score: 18
Position: #238 / 281
Number of attempts: 1

readability - 327 entries

Make the code readable by adding some spaces

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #70 / 152
Number of attempts: 3

Interleave lines - 185 entries

This is some kind of « paste -d'\n' c b a ». There are many ways to achieve this.. just find the shortest!

Best score: 17
Best player score: 35
Position: #47 / 60
Number of attempts: 4

Space out the alphabet - 1657 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

Best score: 15
Best player score: 17
Position: #194 / 444
Number of attempts: 4

remove all lines in first part - 211 entries

From the second part, remove all lines in the first part. It can be useful when you have done something from a long list, you want to know what is not done yet!

Best score: 13
Best player score: 15
Position: #31 / 67
Number of attempts: 4

Merge blank lines and properly capitalize - 82 entries

Here you need complete 2 tasks: 1. Remove all unwanted continuous blank lines and leave only 1 blank line between paragraphs. 2. Properly capitalize the sentences.

Best score: 21
Best player score: 43
Position: #18 / 24
Number of attempts: 1

Fix the XML - 1039 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 32
Position: #262 / 290
Number of attempts: 1

Line 'em up! - 421 entries

It can be so hard to keep everything neatly lined-up. Somebody clearly hasn't bothered here. Tidy it up, please!

Best score: 17
Best player score: 30
Position: #94 / 114
Number of attempts: 1

Mute the second method of this script - 455 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

Best score: 8
Best player score: 9
Position: #111 / 239
Number of attempts: 3

Condensed Cases - 804 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: 13
Position: #93 / 247
Number of attempts: 3

increment by column in XML - 152 entries

modify an arbitrary "column" in an xml table by incrementing a an arbitrary placeholder string

Best score: 19
Best player score: 26
Position: #39 / 55
Number of attempts: 2

Pretty format for variable declarations - 170 entries

Project standards demand the equal signs must be aligned for better readability.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 19
Position: #52 / 64
Number of attempts: 2

Happy TvvO - 427 entries

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

Best score: 12
Best player score: 12
Position: #111 / 206
Number of attempts: 4

I forgot quotes - 15983 entries

Oops.

Best score: 10
Best player score: 12
Position: #1283 / 4180
Number of attempts: 2

-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #160 / 1137
Number of attempts: 4

Suffix sort - 270 entries

Sort from the end of the line, as if the letters in each line were reversed.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 24
Position: #37 / 67
Number of attempts: 3

NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 253 entries

Just testing.

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #52 / 116
Number of attempts: 2

Gray area - 747 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #16 / 271
Number of attempts: 5

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: 12
Position: #213 / 585
Number of attempts: 10

Mess in revision history - 1184 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

Best score: 17
Best player score: 30
Position: #206 / 250
Number of attempts: 1

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

Best score: 11
Best player score: 11
Position: #954 / 3683
Number of attempts: 4

attr_aligner - 3520 entries

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

Best score: 19
Best player score: 23
Position: #230 / 702
Number of attempts: 10

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: 12
Position: #349 / 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: 15
Position: #475 / 1078
Number of attempts: 2

Words in parens - 12935 entries

We should all ace this, right?

Best score: 13
Best player score: 16
Position: #2317 / 3963
Number of attempts: 1

Block Fun 1 - 210 entries

Manipulate the columns to produce desired result.

Best score: 14
Best player score: 25
Position: #65 / 75
Number of attempts: 3

abcd > a b c d - 291 entries

transform the single spaces into 4 spaces repeat for each line

Best score: 15
Best player score: 15
Position: #163 / 222
Number of attempts: 1

NATO phonetic alphabet - 529 entries

Transform the series of words into a list.

Best score: 19
Best player score: 22
Position: #120 / 196
Number of attempts: 1

Extract text from xml - 127 entries

Extract text from xml file (ignoring commented out elements) and create a one line regex.

Best score: 28
Best player score: 28
Position: #5 / 46
Number of attempts: 5

SFD-ROC: vimvimvim - 1606 entries

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

Best score: 8
Best player score: 9
Position: #238 / 446
Number of attempts: 5

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: 25
Position: #182 / 480
Number of attempts: 6

Convert pandoc unordered list to a numbered list - 166 entries

I know it's possible to use #. in pandoc to auto-generate numbered lists, but then it's not easy to tell how many items there are when reading it in Markdown. How fast can you make the switch?

Best score: 20
Best player score: 48
Position: #53 / 57
Number of attempts: 1

Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1118 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

Best score: 7
Best player score: 9
Position: #306 / 445
Number of attempts: 2

Enharmonic Equivalents - 59 entries

Transform # and b to digraphs

Best score: 18
Best player score: 18
Position: #12 / 37
Number of attempts: 2

Vertical Limit - 2538 entries

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

Best score: 21
Best player score: 25
Position: #370 / 754
Number of attempts: 7

replacing each line of a block selection - 2999 entries

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

Best score: 18
Best player score: 21
Position: #399 / 777
Number of attempts: 4

Switch function arguments - 2139 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #299 / 663
Number of attempts: 3

Append semicolon after expressions - 1056 entries

Some lines need the semicolon, some don't.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #237 / 419
Number of attempts: 5

Reverse and double space - 500 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

Best score: 14
Best player score: 15
Position: #82 / 199
Number of attempts: 4

Remove semicolons after expressions - 654 entries

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

Best score: 6
Best player score: 8
Position: #225 / 263
Number of attempts: 2

switch variable - 5071 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #891 / 1748
Number of attempts: 6

Make it more readable - 2005 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

Best score: 13
Best player score: 17
Position: #481 / 650
Number of attempts: 4

It'ss tooo coold too typpe todaay - 224 entries

My hands are numb with cold. It's hard to type correctly.

Best score: 16
Best player score: 23
Position: #66 / 98
Number of attempts: 2

Numbering a List - 1931 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

Best score: 13
Best player score: 13
Position: #24 / 652
Number of attempts: 7

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: 12
Position: #82 / 406
Number of attempts: 7

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: 18
Position: #380 / 516
Number of attempts: 3

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: #456 / 664
Number of attempts: 1

Ruby 1.9 compat - 629 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: #114 / 234
Number of attempts: 5

Reverse Simple Deletion - 847 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

Best score: 11
Best player score: 12
Position: #323 / 458
Number of attempts: 2

Increment, increment, increment.... - 688 entries

Vim likes macros

Best score: 10
Best player score: 12
Position: #328 / 408
Number of attempts: 2

The Cake is a Lie - 1346 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

Best score: 9
Best player score: 9
Position: #236 / 527
Number of attempts: 2

Make Fancy Header - 1052 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

Best score: 15
Best player score: 16
Position: #111 / 344
Number of attempts: 3

Reverse characters in a line - 771 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: 13
Position: #73 / 265
Number of attempts: 6

Reformat most common surnames - 717 entries

Reformat copy-pasted table into a list of the most common surnames

Best score: 23
Best player score: 42
Position: #169 / 210
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: 22
Position: #158 / 588
Number of attempts: 5

Sort and add attributes - 1451 entries

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

Best score: 33
Best player score: 34
Position: #366 / 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: 21
Position: #229 / 412
Number of attempts: 4

Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3665 entries

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

Best score: 16
Best player score: 31
Position: #561 / 787
Number of attempts: 1

Flodder-challenge - 1262 entries

Replace the text the most efficient and win!

Best score: 27
Best player score: 33
Position: #114 / 335
Number of attempts: 4

Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6982 entries

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

Best score: 28
Best player score: 37
Position: #553 / 1706
Number of attempts: 2

Contributed Challenges

Add Go XML to structure tags - 170 entries

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