Copy word under cursor in tmux?

Question

I assume this is common operation but can't find any information about this. When in copy mode (Ctrl + [) Is there a shortcut to copy the word under the cursor without manually creating the selection?

I've tried to switch to vi-mode and use yw but it doesn't look like it works (in fact, I'm not entirely sure what vi-mode does besides mapping the arrow keys to hjkl).

Any idea how to achieve this?

Answer 1

Edit: As pointed out by @Sebastian Graf, tmux now has a native command: send-keys -X select-word for selecting a word. What follows I leave for posterity ...

bind -n -T copy-mode-vi C-d send-keys b \; send -X begin-selection \; send-keys E

I'm using the above to at least select the current word under the cursor. The shortcut is C-d as inspired by Sublime Text. You will need to have also set set-window-option -g mode-keys vi, but I believe that is default. In vi-mode the b moves the cursor to the beginning of the current word, then it begins selecting with begin-selection, then moves the cursor to the end of the current word with E.

So you could also copy the word with:

bind -n -T copy-mode-vi C-d send-keys b \; send -X begin-selection \; send-keys E \; send -x copy-selection.

I've included all the commands here, because I couldn't find anywhere on the Internet that actually formatted it nicely.

Function                   Vi         Emacs
-------------------------------------------
Back to indentation        ^          M-m
Bottom of history          G          M-<
Clear selection            Esc        C-g
Copy selection             Enter      M-w
Cursor down                j          Down
Cursor left                h          Left
Cursor right               l          Right
Cursor to bottom line      L     
Cursor to middle line      M          M-r
Cursor to top line         H          M-R
Cursor up                  k          Up
Delete entire line         d          C-u
Delete/Copy to end of line D          C-k
End of line                $          C-e
Go to line                 :          g
Half page down             C-d        M-Down
Half page up               C-u        M-Up
Jump forward               f          f
Jump backward              F          F
Jump again                 ;          ;
Jump again in reverse      ,          ,
Next page                  C-f        PgDown
Next space                 W
Next space, end of word    E
Next word                  w
Next word end              e          M-f
Paste buffer               p          C-y
Previous page              C-b        PgUp
Previous word              b          M-b
Previous space             B
Quit mode                  q          Esc
Rectangle toggle           v          R
Scroll down                C-Down/C-e C-Down
Scroll up                  C-Up/C-y   C-Up
Search again               n          n
Search again in reverse    N          N
Search backward            ?          C-r
Search forward             /          C-s
Start of line              0          C-a
Start selection            Space      C-Space
Top of history             g          M->
Transpose chars            C-t