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

HS exam question - 1589 entries

Convert the data to a python dictionary

  • Best score: 47
  • Best player score: 69
  • Position: #186 / 417
  • Number of attempts: 1
Many duplicates - 1445 entries

Quick and easy

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #146 / 468
  • Number of attempts: 2
delete swap - 1786 entries

delete all swap

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #107 / 555
  • Number of attempts: 1
Generate a very basic Python constructor (fixed) - 1253 entries

Original by @BiddulphCaleb (http://www.vimgolf.com/challenges/6019f1c4642668000cee11e8) - had some extra spaces in output file.

  • Best score: 29
  • Best player score: 46
  • Position: #156 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 6
hello-world-vimgolf - 2499 entries

Simple number generation

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #576 / 708
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 30
  • Position: #5302 / 7420
  • Number of attempts: 1
One number per line - 18727 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #2538 / 3864
  • Number of attempts: 1
citizen_hacks_2019_challenge2 - 195 entries

For the Citizen Hacks 2019 Vim competition.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #40 / 102
  • Number of attempts: 3
Applying same text modification in several lines - 2880 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #431 / 851
  • Number of attempts: 3
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 323 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #37 / 71
  • Number of attempts: 7
Add string initializers to an enum - 872 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #85 / 258
  • Number of attempts: 7
SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case - 1214 entries

Convert strings in SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE to Title Case. Examples: EMPLOYEE_NAME -> Employee Name REVENUE_YEAR_TO_DATE -> Revenue Year To Date SALARY -> Salary

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 32
  • Position: #196 / 249
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add semicolons - 10852 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #2436 / 3063
  • Number of attempts: 1
Bad Copy Syntax - 2037 entries

Copy should be from right to left, but sometimes you type it wrong.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #294 / 525
  • Number of attempts: 2
Split line with dots - 2144 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #508 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 1
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3586 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #711 / 1162
  • Number of attempts: 2
Com(m)a Trouble - 3823 entries

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

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #495 / 865
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7905 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #1161 / 1876
  • Number of attempts: 1
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: 19
  • Position: #78 / 380
  • Number of attempts: 8
html paragraph to table - 606 entries

reformat html paragraph to table

  • Best score: 48
  • Best player score: 48
  • Position: #13 / 126
  • Number of attempts: 13
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: #126 / 458
  • 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: 13
  • Position: #147 / 640
  • Number of attempts: 6
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: #242 / 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: #627 / 1624
  • Number of attempts: 2
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: 31
  • Position: #31 / 129
  • Number of attempts: 6
That hyphen - 2595 entries

"vim vi improved"

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #219 / 701
  • Number of attempts: 7
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: 9
  • Position: #130 / 322
  • Number of attempts: 7
Just the middle - 11454 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #2967 / 4197
  • Number of attempts: 1
Interweave two blocks of text - 659 entries

Suppose you've got data on a list of things from multiple sources. They're all in separate chunks, so how might you create a tabular output?

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #61 / 214
  • 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: #95 / 213
  • Number of attempts: 11
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: #89 / 270
  • Number of attempts: 5
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: #138 / 291
  • Number of attempts: 2
One to Ten - 2219 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: #223 / 672
  • Number of attempts: 10
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: 15
  • Position: #115 / 208
  • Number of attempts: 1
citizen_hacks_2019_challenge5 - 147 entries

For the Citizen Hacks 2019 Vim competition.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 6
  • Position: #26 / 77
  • Number of attempts: 2
Line under headers - 2044 entries

Put a line under each header, and remove the other markdown formatting.

  • Best score: 24
  • Best player score: 27
  • Position: #148 / 503
  • Number of attempts: 4
Delete to the end of the current line - 812 entries

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

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #193 / 391
  • Number of attempts: 2
change parenthesis - 296 entries

change the pair of braces into a pair of parentheses

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #68 / 161
  • Number of attempts: 2
move titles next to url, in quotes - 534 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #5 / 141
  • Number of attempts: 7
Space out the alphabet - 1657 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #99 / 444
  • Number of attempts: 7
I forgot quotes - 15983 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #958 / 4180
  • Number of attempts: 8
-a-b-c- - 3213 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #397 / 1137
  • Number of attempts: 4
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: #272 / 585
  • Number of attempts: 2
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10663 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1461 / 3683
  • 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: 17
  • Position: #936 / 1078
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12935 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #1775 / 3963
  • 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: 8
  • Position: #105 / 446
  • 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: 22
  • Position: #133 / 480
  • Number of attempts: 9
Vertical Limit - 2538 entries

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

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #84 / 754
  • Number of attempts: 9
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: #414 / 777
  • Number of attempts: 2
switch variable - 5071 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #585 / 1748
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make it more readable - 2005 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #99 / 650
  • Number of attempts: 6
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3665 entries

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

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #142 / 787
  • Number of attempts: 14
James Casey
Twitter:

I am a scientist/adventurer currently working as a programmer while planning out my next adventures!

entered into 53 challenges

contributed 0 challenges