How to remove spaces between parenthesis?

Question

I have a text that looks like this

" original
  call minpac#add('morhetz / gruvbox')

" desired
  call minpac#add('morhetz/gruvbox')

How can I limit vim pattern search within parentheses?

I tried '<,'>s/ //g in visual selection mode, but the problem is it also removes the indentation at the start as a sideffect. I am looking for a pattern search variation which would only work inside the parenthesis.

I am looking for something in lines of '<,'>s/ //gc where I can tell vim its n for first match and y for all others? I am not even sure if something like this is even possible in vim.

Answer 1

If you desired output is:

" desired
  call minpac#add('morhetz/gruvbox')

And you are not against doing it a bit interactively...

1. put your cursor on the line before or inside 'morhets / gruvbox' and do vi' to select everything inside a string.
2. run the command :s/\%V\s\+//g (it should look like :'<,'>s/\%V\s\+//g) on a command line

:help \%V -- match inside visual area.

Or, alternatively, you can limit your regex with a column:

:s/\%>20c\s*//g

:h \%>c -- match after a specific column.

Answer 2

You can process in two times with mixing :substitute with substitute(), thanks to \=

:%s/(\zs.*\ze)/\=substitute(submatch(0), ' ', '', 'g')/