Find & Replace - Google Sheets Script

Question

I'm having some trouble with my script. Basically, that works getting data from one course and inputting the values to one Sheet. That's working perfectly. But when one of my students input 'enter' command at that course, I have trouble to read it in Excel. SO, I have to find and replace the enter at Google Spreadsheet and change it for "; ". Works perfectly doing it manually, but I can't do it by script. Here the piece:

      //  1. Enter sheet name where data is to be written below
        var SHEET_NAME = "DATA";

//  2. Run > setup
//
//  3. Publish > Deploy as web app 
//    - enter Project Version name and click 'Save New Version' 
//    - set security level and enable service (most likely execute as 'me' and access 'anyone, even anonymously) 
//
//  4. Copy the 'Current web app URL' and post this in your form/script action 
//
//  5. Insert column names on your destination sheet matching the parameter names of the data you are passing in (exactly matching case)

var SCRIPT_PROP = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties(); // new property service

// If you don't want to expose either GET or POST methods you can comment out the appropriate function
function doGet(e){
  return handleResponse(e);
}
 function doPost(e){
  return handleResponse(e);
}

function handleResponse(e) {
  // shortly after my original solution Google announced the LockService[1]
  // this prevents concurrent access overwritting data
  // [1] http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/concurrency-and-google-apps-script.html
  // we want a public lock, one that locks for all invocations
  var lock = LockService.getPublicLock();
  lock.waitLock(30000);  // wait 30 seconds before conceding defeat.

  try {
    // next set where we write the data - you could write to multiple/alternate destinations
    var doc = SpreadsheetApp.openById(SCRIPT_PROP.getProperty("CHANGED BY SECURITY REASON"));
    var sheet = doc.getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME);

    // we'll assume header is in row 1 but you can override with header_row in GET/POST data
    var headRow = e.parameter.header_row || 1;
    var headers = sheet.getRange(1, 1, 1, sheet.getLastColumn()).getValues()[0];
    var nextRow = sheet.getLastRow()+1; // get next row
    var row = []; 
    // loop through the header columns
    for (i in headers){
      if (headers[i] == "Timestamp"){ // special case if you include a 'Timestamp' column
        row.push(new Date());
      } else { // else use header name to get data
        row.push(e.parameter[headers[i]]);
      }
    }
    // more efficient to set values as [][] array than individually
    sheet.getRange(nextRow, 1, 1, row.length).setValues([row]);
    // return json success results
    return ContentService
          .createTextOutput(JSON.stringify({"result":"success", "row": nextRow}))
          .setMimeType(ContentService.MimeType.JSON);
  } catch(e){


    // if error return this
    return ContentService
          .createTextOutput(JSON.stringify({"result":"error", "error": e}))
          .setMimeType(ContentService.MimeType.JSON);
  } finally { //release lock
    lock.releaseLock();
  }
}


function setup() {
    var doc = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
    SCRIPT_PROP.setProperty("1Un5A61M8CJDBGDAB-Tx-lYgKYaVB2RSfn9QAQ5Q-sZs", doc.getId());
}

Where can I input:

     doc.replaceText("\r\n|\n|\r",";[[:space:]]"); 

to work straight after the spreadsheet received the data? I can't open the sheet after the course is done to do it manually or even play the script. (Sorry about any language mistake)

Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Based from this related post, you can achieve this by reading in all values in the sheet (as an Array), looping over the array, replacing the values, then writing the entire array back to the sheet.

You may want to check the sample code in this thread.

Try this:

function fandr() {
  var r=SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getDataRange();
  var rws=r.getNumRows();
  var cls=r.getNumColumns();
  var i,j,a,find,repl;
  find="abc";
  repl="xyz";
  for (i=1;i<=rws;i++) {
    for (j=1;j<=cls;j++) {
      a=r.getCell(i, j).getValue();
      if (r.getCell(i,j).getFormula()) {continue;}
      try {
        a=a.replace(find,repl);
        r.getCell(i, j).setValue(a);
      }
      catch (err) {continue;}
    }
  }
}

This time it will replace find in a string. I can put it back to only replace if the string is find if that's better. Basically, I replace:

  try {
    a=a.replace(find,repl);
    r.getCell(i, j).setValue(a);
  }
  catch (err) {continue;}

with

  if (a==find) { r.getCell(i, j).setValue(repl);}