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

Rural Post - 4552 entries

Simple challenge to remove all but the post code on each line

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #684 / 1110
  • Number of attempts: 4
Satisfy the go linter - 2437 entries

You just came up with this briliant go vars package. But dang, you forgot to add comments to the exported variables. Can you add a comment over each variable with a TODO-placeholder?

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #315 / 481
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 1007 entries

You created an ansible playbook, but forgot to add quotes. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #270 / 316
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple, Practical, and Common - 33742 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: 26
  • Position: #3655 / 7447
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values - 4643 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1133 / 1274
  • Number of attempts: 3
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6353 entries

Prepend an asterisk to every non-blank line in the input file.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #1061 / 1549
  • Number of attempts: 3
One number per line - 18776 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #3022 / 3875
  • Number of attempts: 7
Swap values inside brackets - 2511 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #511 / 583
  • Number of attempts: 5
V to the i - 4818 entries

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

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #1328 / 1898
  • Number of attempts: 1
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2897 entries

Remove identical text at the beginning of several lines and the closing parenthesis.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #559 / 857
  • Number of attempts: 5
Swap the operands under comparison - 297 entries

Swap the operands under comparison to prevent null pointer exception (at least in java)

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #79 / 101
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10887 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2374 / 3074
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split line with dots - 2154 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #622 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3604 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #871 / 1169
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3880 entries

Someone was real stupid when placing his commas. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #625 / 878
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7916 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #648 / 1881
  • Number of attempts: 4
multiple cursor alternative - 1521 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: 37
  • Position: #359 / 381
  • Number of attempts: 3
From argument to object - 1513 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: 20
  • Position: #340 / 460
  • Number of attempts: 1
Every other line - 2916 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #649 / 705
  • Number of attempts: 1
Copy three lines - 2875 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #465 / 641
  • Number of attempts: 5
Extract argument from function - 2364 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #750 / 755
  • Number of attempts: 1
Search and Replace 0 - 5007 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1395 / 1631
  • Number of attempts: 1
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 540 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 45
  • Position: #120 / 129
  • Number of attempts: 1
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #535 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 2
comment and uncomment code inline - 1130 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: 14
  • Position: #292 / 324
  • Number of attempts: 1
Just the middle - 11495 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #3579 / 4213
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1841 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #490 / 589
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make HTML List - 1061 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 57
  • Position: #253 / 274
  • Number of attempts: 1
Learn some german verbs - 533 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: 37
  • Position: #118 / 133
  • Number of attempts: 5
Basic renumbering - 5683 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #704 / 1269
  • Number of attempts: 2
Adam's challenge - 992 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: 30
  • Position: #263 / 272
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7953 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #1774 / 2140
  • Number of attempts: 3
Order and join - 985 entries

There's something special about the input order.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #224 / 260
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 1048 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #265 / 425
  • Number of attempts: 4
Scrambled numbers - 807 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #170 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 2
Align commas - 1097 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: 26
  • Position: #236 / 247
  • 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: 22
  • Position: #197 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 2
Array transposition - 2425 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #383 / 449
  • Number of attempts: 2
convert yml into java pojo field - 857 entries

How fast vim can create fields for java pojo i.e class declaration referring to a (simple) yml file

  • Best score: 29
  • Best player score: 36
  • Position: #192 / 227
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 4308 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #852 / 1192
  • Number of attempts: 4
Space out the alphabet - 1659 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #365 / 446
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fix the XML - 1039 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 51
  • Position: #286 / 290
  • Number of attempts: 3
I forgot quotes - 16038 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #3318 / 4192
  • Number of attempts: 3
-a-b-c- - 3216 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #1009 / 1138
  • Number of attempts: 1
Count both ways - 1022 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #350 / 354
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 14
  • Position: #368 / 586
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10688 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #3183 / 3691
  • Number of attempts: 2
attr_aligner - 3522 entries

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

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 31
  • Position: #445 / 703
  • 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: 15
  • Position: #450 / 518
  • Number of attempts: 4
quotes inside quotes - 3165 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: #921 / 1079
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12967 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #3311 / 3969
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array Transposition - 201 entries

Transpose four arrays into two.

  • Best score: 27
  • Best player score: 68
  • Position: #53 / 56
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2554 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #602 / 758
  • Number of attempts: 1
replacing each line of a block selection - 3005 entries

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

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #520 / 779
  • Number of attempts: 3
Switch function arguments - 2147 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #513 / 666
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5079 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1527 / 1749
  • Number of attempts: 1
Make it more readable - 2009 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #411 / 652
  • Number of attempts: 1
Numbering a List - 1935 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #575 / 654
  • Number of attempts: 1
Simple text editing with Vim - 13017 entries

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

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 20
  • Position: #2857 / 3745
  • Number of attempts: 5
Reformat/Refactor a Golfer Class - 7173 entries

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

  • Best score: 28
  • Best player score: 59
  • Position: #1586 / 1761
  • Number of attempts: 2
Luis Rodriguez
Twitter:

entered into 60 challenges

contributed 0 challenges