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Vim: search word under cursor (not * or #)

I want to replicate Sublime Text's "CTRL-D" behavior which highlights the current word under the cursor.

* and # don't work here, because they automatically move the cursor (like n and N), which I explicitly don't want.

In order to hightlight the current word under the cursor, I have found the following to be effective:

yiw
:let @/=@@
:set hls

If you type this manually it works just fine, as intended.

My problem is that I just don't get it what I do wrong to put this on a keymap so I can bind it.

What I've tried so far is:

  1. create a function, then map it to a key:

    function SearchWordUnderCursor()
    silent! yiw
    silent! :let @/ = @@
    silent! :set hls
endfunction

  2. use the inline keybinding, like so:

    nmap <C-D> yiw | :let @/ = @@ | :set hls

Both methods don't work as intended and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

The search pattern/register is set just fine, but the immediate highlighting is not working, you'd have to manually n or N once to display the highlighting, but that moves the cursor, as opposed to the "manual" method.

Why is it so hard to get it done as if it was typed manually?

I'm using NVIM v0.2.2.

Solution
    1. If you remove silent! from the code vim helpfully cries yiw: not an editor command.

    In a function every line is : (ex-)command. Your yiw is equivalent to :yiw and this is not an editor command. (This also means that you can safely omit : before commands). To run a Normal-mode command say :normal explicitly:

    function SearchWordUnderCursor()
    silent! normal yiw
    silent! let @/ = @@
    silent! set hls
endfunction
    1. In a mapping you need to separate commands with <BAR> instead of | and pass all the keys you press including Enter:
    nmap <C-D> yiw <BAR> :let @/ = @@<CR> <BAR> :set hls<CR>