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 - 33787 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: #1174 / 7454
  • Number of attempts: 10
Swap values - 4647 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #199 / 1276
  • Number of attempts: 6
One number per line - 18799 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #347 / 3881
  • Number of attempts: 9
V to the i - 4824 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #532 / 1899
  • Number of attempts: 7
Split line with dots - 2154 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #127 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 3
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3614 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #97 / 1173
  • Number of attempts: 2
Box it - 7954 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #64 / 1886
  • Number of attempts: 3
multiple cursor alternative - 1547 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: 22
  • Position: #231 / 385
  • Number of attempts: 5
From argument to object - 1524 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: #68 / 463
  • Number of attempts: 7
Every other line - 2922 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #2 / 706
  • Number of attempts: 8
Array propagate - 343 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 90
  • Position: #120 / 121
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #170 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 3
comment and uncomment code inline - 1151 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: #80 / 328
  • Number of attempts: 5
Flip the bit - 135 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #12 / 76
  • Number of attempts: 3
Just the middle - 11509 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2570 / 4218
  • Number of attempts: 5
Learn some german verbs - 541 entries

The list needs to be structured so we can print in verbatim and feel ok about how it looks.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #103 / 134
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 268 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #6 / 145
  • Number of attempts: 5
Stairstep digits - 407 entries

Remove the evens. Double the odds.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #34 / 149
  • Number of attempts: 2
Basic renumbering - 5685 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 66
  • Position: #1269 / 1270
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple addition - 332 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: #37 / 124
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 873 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: #100 / 294
  • Number of attempts: 5
Vice versa - 7968 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #329 / 2144
  • Number of attempts: 8
comments galore - 1073 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #239 / 429
  • Number of attempts: 7
One to Ten - 2240 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: #20 / 681
  • Number of attempts: 3
Change part of a function name in multiple occurrences - 672 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: #145 / 210
  • Number of attempts: 3
Increment each number - 1041 entries

Increment each number individually by one

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #64 / 254
  • Number of attempts: 3
Delete to the end of the current line - 849 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #65 / 407
  • Number of attempts: 1
Collect List - 4312 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #343 / 1193
  • Number of attempts: 5
Space out the alphabet - 1659 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #80 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 7
I forgot quotes - 16061 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #829 / 4195
  • Number of attempts: 8
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1164 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #65 / 301
  • Number of attempts: 12
Don't know what this is - 2024 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: #90 / 586
  • Number of attempts: 6
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10699 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1211 / 3695
  • Number of attempts: 5
Letter case trickery - 1644 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: #16 / 520
  • Number of attempts: 6
quotes inside quotes - 3182 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: #283 / 1085
  • Number of attempts: 8
Words in parens - 12975 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #853 / 3971
  • Number of attempts: 3
replacing each line of a block selection - 3005 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #638 / 779
  • Number of attempts: 1
Switch function arguments - 2162 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #425 / 669
  • Number of attempts: 3
switch variable - 5085 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #932 / 1750
  • Number of attempts: 1
Ugly spreadsheet copy/paste to CSV - 1011 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #6 / 194
  • Number of attempts: 18
Generate English Alphabets - 502 entries

Start with a, get up to z.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #6 / 209
  • Number of attempts: 9
The Cake is a Lie - 1374 entries

Correct the capitalization of each word

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #239 / 534
  • Number of attempts: 4
Fix the Haiku - 320 entries

Change this slightly scrambled haiku to its unscrambled form and fix the capitalisation and punctuation along the way.

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #95 / 115
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple text editing with Vim - 13134 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2317 / 3776
  • Number of attempts: 1
Dominic Z
Twitter:

Casual gamer, plays minecraft & LoL

entered into 44 challenges

contributed 0 challenges