How can I split strings in Google Apps Script to avoid "Text result of JOIN is longer than the limit of 50000 characters"?

Question

Maybe you guys have an idea, thanks in advance community!

I'm current getting the Error:

Text result of JOIN is longer than the limit of 50000 characters

within Google Sheets when using this formula

=TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(JOIN(",";B1:B7);","))

I thought I could create a workaround in Google AppScript but my code is not working properly on the front end.

Current code:

function masterJoin(value) {
 
  //var delim = ","
  //var value = [["employee1","employee2"],["employee3"]]
  
  //delim = delim || '';
  
  var result = [];
  
  for (var i = 0; i < value.length; i++){
    
    //result.push(value[i]);
    //Logger.log(result);
    
    var temp = value[i]
    
    for (var t = 0; t < temp.length; t++){
    
      //Logger.log(temp[t])
      result.push(temp[t])
    
    }
     
  }
  
  return result
  
}

Answer 1

Issue:

• The values look like [["employee1,employee2"],["employee3"]] and not like [["employee1","employee2"],["employee3"]]. In the former case, they're strings. In the latter case, they're arrays.(They're not!)

Solution:

• Use recursion to recurse over all elements

• Split the string elements and

• Flatten the resulting array

Sample script:

/**
 * Simulates TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(JOIN(",",array),","))
 * @param {Object[][]} array2d The two dimensional array passsed from Google sheet
 * @returns {String[]} 1D array - 1D is enough for custom function
 * @customfunction
 */
const masterJoinFixed = array2d => recursiveFunc_(array2d).flat(3);

/**
 * Recursive helper function to split all elements
 *   of a multi dimensional array by comma `,`
 * @param {Object[]|String} arrOrString
 * @returns {Object[]}
 * @private
 */
const recursiveFunc_ = arrOrString =>
  Array.isArray(arrOrString)
    ? arrOrString.map(recursiveFunc_)
    : String(arrOrString).split(',');

/*<ignore>*/console.config({maximize:true,timeStamps:false,autoScroll:false});/*</ignore>*/
const masterJoinFixed = array2d => recursiveFunc_(array2d).flat(3);

const recursiveFunc_ = arrOrString =>
  Array.isArray(arrOrString)
    ? arrOrString.map(recursiveFunc_)
    : String(arrOrString).split(',');
console.info(masterJoinFixed([['1,2,3'],[4],[5]]))

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