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: #4696 / 7420
  • Number of attempts: 1
Swap values - 4616 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #880 / 1268
  • 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: 7
  • Position: #493 / 1893
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 24
  • Position: #417 / 458
  • 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: #491 / 1624
  • Number of attempts: 3
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #157 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 13
  • Position: #273 / 322
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11454 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #3497 / 4197
  • Number of attempts: 1
Un"finnish"ed Work - 116 entries

Replace å by a, ä by a and ö by o.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #42 / 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: 46
  • Position: #177 / 179
  • 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: 64
  • Position: #43 / 53
  • Number of attempts: 1
Stairstep digits - 394 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #67 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 3
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: 17
  • Position: #116 / 122
  • 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: 29
  • Position: #257 / 270
  • Number of attempts: 1
Order and join - 983 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #235 / 259
  • Number of attempts: 1
Paragraph breaks - 522 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #74 / 167
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 38
  • Position: #78 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 3
Collect List - 4298 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #724 / 1190
  • Number of attempts: 1
I forgot quotes - 15983 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3216 / 4180
  • Number of attempts: 1
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #660 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 1
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #2203 / 3683
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: #901 / 1078
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 32
  • Position: #418 / 480
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: #2492 / 3694
  • Number of attempts: 1
Lukas Galke
Twitter:

Learning Representations of Text

entered into 24 challenges

contributed 0 challenges