Question

I’m a vim user and have recently been trying out emacs for fun. I find that the feature I’m missing most so far from vim is the “super star” (find the word under the cursor by typing *) feature, and I have yet to find the equivalent in emacs. If it’s not built in, what would I need to add to my emacs file to get something similar?

Answer 1

As pointed out by paldepind, isearch-forward-symbol-at-point (M-s., by default) is a close equivalent to * in Vim. This function is available starting in GNU Emacs 24.4; if your Emacs is different or older, read on for alternatives.

Usually I just do (M-b …) C-s C-w … C-s. That is:

1. M-b to move to beginning of word(s) of interest
   • zero or more of these
2. C-s to start an I-Search
3. C-w to yank the word(s) starting at point
   • one or more of these
4. C-s to find the next match
5. more C-s to find later matches
6. RET to exit the I-search at the most recent match
   • or a bunch of C-g to abort back to the original starting location

Here is a go at integrating it into I-Search (invoked via C-s and C-r; use C-h k C-s for info on isearch).

(require "thingatpt")
(require "isearch")
(define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-*")
  (lambda ()
    "Reset current isearch to a word-mode search of the word under point."
    (interactive)
    (setq isearch-word t
          isearch-string ""
          isearch-message "")
    (isearch-yank-string (word-at-point))))

Integrating it into I-Search takes advantage of its word matching and case sensitivity settings (C-s M-c C-* would do a case-sensitive search on the word under point).