Removing characters from a range using regex in Google App Script

Question

I am trying to remove all non-digit characters from an extracted range in Google App Script.
For example, using the code snippet below, I am able to remove all "A" character from all cells within the range.

var range = sheet.getRange(1, 18, sheet.getLastRow(), 1);
range.createTextFinder("A").replaceAllWith("");

Now, instead of calling x instances of the .createTextFinder(n).replaceAllWith(""); function, I would like to use regex.
In particular, the '\D' expression would match all non-digit characters, I could then replace them with "".
The problem is I have no idea how to apply regex expressions to an entire range !
So far I'm assuming it's going to be something similar to the pseudo code below :

var range = sheet.getRange(1, 18, sheet.getLastRow(), 1);
var rangeValues = range.getValues();
rangeValues.forEach(//Somehow apply regex here)

How would you peole tackle this problem ?

You have to use `\\D` (two slashes). Example is here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73165115/change-text-in-a-negative-number-in-google-sheets-with-apps-script/ — Yuri Khristich, Aug 09 '22 at 11:16

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 09 '22 at 11:13

2

TextFinder accepts regular expressions:

range.createTextFinder(String.raw`\D`) /*https://stackoverflow.com/a/55793086*/
    .useRegularExpression(true)
    .replaceAllWith("");

answered Aug 09 '22 at 11:13

TheMaster

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It worked wonders thank you ! Although I had to replace `String.raw`\D` with `'\\D'` because Google App Script considered these ` characters illegal. – DonutsSauvage Aug 09 '22 at 12:58
@DonutsSauvage Are you using the new editor? – TheMaster Aug 09 '22 at 15:09
I believe I am yes. It's a small inconvenience and has been easily bypassed though, no need to dig into it too much – DonutsSauvage Aug 09 '22 at 15:59
@DonutsSauvage It works for me. I'm sure there are no illegal characters in my code. If you don't want to dig further, that's fine too. – TheMaster Aug 09 '22 at 16:51

Removing characters from a range using regex in Google App Script

1 Answers1