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

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: #564 / 7421
  • Number of attempts: 8
Swap values - 4616 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #406 / 1268
  • Number of attempts: 6
One number per line - 18727 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1356 / 3864
  • Number of attempts: 12
V to the i - 4802 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #391 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 3
Split line with dots - 2144 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #331 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 4
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3586 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #60 / 1162
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: 17
  • Position: #43 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 4
Every other line - 2910 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #101 / 703
  • Number of attempts: 4
Copy three lines - 2872 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #366 / 640
  • 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: 13
  • Position: #167 / 753
  • Number of attempts: 4
Search and Replace 0 - 4989 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #456 / 1624
  • Number of attempts: 6
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #134 / 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: #181 / 322
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 11454 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #698 / 4197
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make HTML List - 1050 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #68 / 273
  • Number of attempts: 5
Un"finnish"ed Work - 116 entries

Replace å by a, ä by a and ö by o.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #14 / 60
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: #42 / 179
  • 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: 42
  • Position: #127 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 16
  • Position: #52 / 213
  • Number of attempts: 5
JS notation to Immutable.js notation - 186 entries

Now Immutable.js made its way into many frontends. This challenge consists of a typical refactoring that many of us are facing now.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 46
  • Position: #53 / 63
  • Number of attempts: 1
Add to end of each line... kinda - 333 entries

Visual-block mode can be used to add something to the end of each line, even if they are of differing lengths. However, what if it's not quite at the end?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #80 / 174
  • Number of attempts: 5
Wrap text in quotes - 368 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #89 / 122
  • Number of attempts: 1
underscore_to_camelCase - 173 entries

Pointy haired boss decided we need to switch to camelCase. Let's get this over with.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #25 / 82
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vice versa - 7907 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #742 / 2128
  • Number of attempts: 6
Pretty multi-line bash - 235 entries

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

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #14 / 77
  • 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: #69 / 89
  • Number of attempts: 1
Paragraph sort - 450 entries

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

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #58 / 125
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: #49 / 81
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1045 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #192 / 424
  • Number of attempts: 5
Mirrored text - 177 entries

backward and forward, and long enough to be challenging

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #50 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 2
lipsum lines - 278 entries

Convert a quoted block of text into strings in a list.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #55 / 95
  • Number of attempts: 1
Inner hyphens - 136 entries

Yet another hyphen challenge. Adding 5 hyphens to a file shouldn't be too hard.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #61 / 82
  • Number of attempts: 2
Angular naming conventions - 320 entries

In angular, a directive name follows the camelCase convention. When the directive is used in an HTML template, the words are instead separated by a dash. Go from to the other the fastest!

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #60 / 118
  • 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: 26
  • Position: #36 / 118
  • Number of attempts: 7
Scrambled numbers - 807 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #96 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 9
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: 11
  • Position: #39 / 246
  • Number of attempts: 7
Hello ${world} - 324 entries

Migrate a JavaScript String from concatenation to ES6 interpolation.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #14 / 96
  • Number of attempts: 4
Generate a list of numbers - 295 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #91 / 140
  • Number of attempts: 1
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 662 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: 16
  • Position: #140 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 6
Put the months in order - 974 entries

Our contractor thought that months should be in alphabetical order. Put them in calendar order please.

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 53
  • Position: #137 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 1
Array transposition - 2417 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #64 / 448
  • Number of attempts: 8
Mirror Symmetry - 822 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #62 / 269
  • Number of attempts: 5
Swap assigned value - 647 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #83 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 5
From A to B - 591 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #24 / 159
  • Number of attempts: 5
Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #231 / 1190
  • Number of attempts: 6
VimGolfNight - 560 entries

Based on "The name of the game".

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #318 / 347
  • Number of attempts: 2
camel riding - 793 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #127 / 281
  • Number of attempts: 4
readability - 327 entries

Make the code readable by adding some spaces

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #126 / 152
  • Number of attempts: 1
Space out the alphabet - 1657 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #59 / 444
  • Number of attempts: 8
Fix the XML - 1039 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #168 / 290
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 17
  • Position: #28 / 114
  • Number of attempts: 5
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: #113 / 239
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sorting database text output - 223 entries

Sometimes it is nice to be able to quickly take column-formatted text output from the SQL command line and turn it into a list of useful data. In this case we want a unique, sorted list of the values from the second column combined into one comma-separated list. What is the fewest strokes you can do this in?

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #67 / 83
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 17
  • Position: #201 / 247
  • Number of attempts: 1
Happy TvvO - 427 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #117 / 206
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 15983 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #432 / 4180
  • Number of attempts: 6
learn vim in short time - 240 entries

so happy to learn vim.because vim is awesome

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #89 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 2
vim1001 - 307 entries

change number 1001 into a "vim1001 sequence". (My first challenge, hope it is not too bad... )

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #82 / 110
  • Number of attempts: 2
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #170 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 8
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #117 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 4
NBCU Weekly Challenge - Test - 253 entries

Just testing.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #50 / 116
  • Number of attempts: 6
Lisp Condense - 460 entries

Reduce 4 cons selection operations down to one function call.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #156 / 158
  • Number of attempts: 1
120 Degrees - 493 entries

Rotate that triangle.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #96 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 1
Gray area - 747 entries

It's a golf metaphor or something.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #93 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 13
  • Position: #264 / 585
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 35
  • Position: #160 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 1
Where should I put the Newline? - 881 entries

Help me put the newline.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #177 / 437
  • Number of attempts: 3
Mess in revision history - 1184 entries

Help Joe clean up what Steve has cobbled.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #207 / 250
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 40
  • Position: #84 / 111
  • Number of attempts: 3
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #999 / 3683
  • Number of attempts: 8
attr_aligner - 3520 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #438 / 702
  • Number of attempts: 3
Counting in binary - 526 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #65 / 117
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 10
  • Position: #150 / 518
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: 14
  • Position: #239 / 1078
  • Number of attempts: 6
Words in parens - 12935 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1546 / 3963
  • Number of attempts: 5
Hole-in-one - 1018 entries

Lets take this golf thing literally.. Drive off the tee into the hole, and of course you don't strike the ball completely clean.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #86 / 304
  • Number of attempts: 5
Define to require - 127 entries

When JSHint is enabled, there's a rule that doesn't let you have more than 6 arguments in a function, so the moment you need to add a 7th argument, you need to do a refactoring.

  • Best score: 62
  • Best player score: 90
  • Position: #33 / 50
  • Number of attempts: 2
Prefixes and suffixes - 635 entries

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

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #93 / 201
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 10
  • Position: #81 / 192
  • Number of attempts: 3
The name of the game - 665 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #214 / 360
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 8
  • Position: #80 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 3
Stairs Indenting - 473 entries

Indent each line with <line number> whitespaces.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #126 / 197
  • Number of attempts: 1
Let's play some Ivmgolf - 1118 entries

Oops, I spelled that wrong.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #97 / 445
  • 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: 23
  • Position: #238 / 754
  • Number of attempts: 6
replacing each line of a block selection - 2999 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #635 / 777
  • Number of attempts: 1
Switch function arguments - 2139 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #129 / 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: 11
  • Position: #98 / 419
  • Number of attempts: 3
Reverse and double space - 500 entries

Reverse the order of the given lines and double space everything

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #106 / 199
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove semicolons after expressions - 654 entries

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

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #88 / 263
  • Number of attempts: 3
switch variable - 5071 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #900 / 1748
  • Number of attempts: 4
The meaning - 575 entries

Numbers are fun!

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #260 / 363
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 2005 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #484 / 650
  • Number of attempts: 2
Line Zipper - 473 entries

Zip/pair related lines.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #191 / 215
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 25
  • Position: #248 / 336
  • Number of attempts: 3
imports alignment (python) - 700 entries

Align as one import per line.

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #124 / 198
  • Number of attempts: 6
Numbering a List - 1931 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #344 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 13
  • Position: #170 / 406
  • Number of attempts: 3
Assignment Alignment - 883 entries

line up the operators. Use spaces, not tabs.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #40 / 220
  • 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: 14
  • Position: #234 / 516
  • Number of attempts: 8
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: #436 / 664
  • Number of attempts: 1
Reverse Simple Deletion - 847 entries

You did the simple deletion, now reverse it.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #326 / 458
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 688 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #330 / 408
  • Number of attempts: 2
Sorting paragraphs - 534 entries

Order the paragraphs correctly, per prefixed index

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 35
  • Position: #107 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 1
Hatsuyume - 532 entries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsuyume

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #55 / 186
  • Number of attempts: 1
The Cake is a Lie - 1346 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #221 / 527
  • Number of attempts: 4
Context insensitive completion 0 - 577 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: 6
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #96 / 246
  • Number of attempts: 3
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 498 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #127 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make Fancy Header - 1052 entries

Make the header text stand out with surrounding asterisks

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #287 / 344
  • Number of attempts: 2
Reformat some Python - 609 entries

Fix some very bizarrely laid-out code.

  • Best score: 34
  • Best player score: 34
  • Position: #33 / 236
  • 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: 26
  • Position: #79 / 210
  • Number of attempts: 8
Change the content of a string - 1580 entries

This docstring is a complete lie. Fix it.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #300 / 588
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: #361 / 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: 20
  • Position: #96 / 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: 30
  • Position: #536 / 787
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: 17
  • Position: #2481 / 3694
  • Number of attempts: 6
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 6982 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 44
  • Position: #1118 / 1706
  • Number of attempts: 1
Will
Twitter:

this is an old picture.

entered into 116 challenges

contributed 0 challenges