In vim, is there a way to rebind "*" to highlight the current word, without advancing to the next?

Question

I often use * to highlight all instances of the current word, and the fact that it advances to the next word is pretty annoying. I'd like to disable this behavior, knowing that I can always use "n" if I actually need to advance.

Any insight?

EDIT: I should add that I'd like to avoid a screen redraw at all costs as it is visually distracting.

Answer 1

Try this:

nnoremap * :let @/ = "\\<<C-R><C-W>\\>"<CR>

(Assumes you have 'hlsearch' on). This just changes the current search pattern to the word under the cursor (surrounded by \< and \> to match word boundaries). If you have hlsearch enabled, it will highlight the word. n and N will then work as normal.

See:

:help :let-@
:help quote/
:help c_CTRL-R_CTRL-W