Develop Reference

Making a custom function in Google Sheets, the code works outside of sheets but not in sheets

So I'm writing a custom function for Google sheets which is supposed to take a single row or cells, produce a 1 dimensional array and use that data to create a URL. This is basically so I can help my friends track the prices of an item in a video game.
I have ran the code in a javascript environment outside of Google Sheets and everything acted as expected. But when I put the code in the script editor, it runs with unexpected behavior. The range of cells will always be 1 row by 13 columns but some of the columns may be void so the script is supposed to truncate the array of values so that there are no empty indexes. Then it is supposed to insert a "." between each value as it is concatenated into a string to produce the final URL. For some reason it does not remove any values and the "." are ","s when the URL is created in the cell.
Here is the code:
function STONKLINK(prices, premrkt) {
var webLink = "https://turnipprophet.io?prices=";
var priceLink = "";
for (i = (prices.length - 1); prices[i] == 0; i--){
prices.pop();
}
for (i = 0; i < prices.length; i++) {
priceLink = (priceLink + prices[i] + ".")
}
priceLink = priceLink.substring(0, priceLink.length - 1);
if (premrkt == "N/A") {
webLink = webLink + priceLink;
} else if (premrkt == "Fluctuating") {
webLink = webLink + priceLink + "&pattern=0";
} else if (premrkt == "Small Spike") {
webLink = webLink + priceLink + "&pattern=3";
} else if (premrkt == "Large Spike") {
webLink = webLink + priceLink + "&pattern=1";
} else if (premrkt == "Decreasing") {
webLink = webLink + priceLink + "&pattern=2";
}
return webLink;
}
Any help is very much appreciated. Thank you so much.
EDIT: While I still do not understand why this is happening, and I would like to understand, I have added a simple work around. By adding this line of code
webLink = webLink.replace(/,/g, ".");
before the return, all the commas will be replaced with dots. Still, any insight into the problem will be much appreciated. Thank you again.

When you store values in Spreadsheets, the values which have a , are considered to be strings whilst the ones which have a . will be considered to be numbers.
So for example, if you have these values stored in the B column:
If you log the typeof(val1) and typeof(val2) (where val1 and val2 are the values stored in B1 respectively B2), this is what you will get:
So the issue you were encountering is due to this fact. The values you have stored in your sheet are numbers and when you try to build the webLink string they are converted into strings - therefore, the . for a number becomes ,.
Reference
Date and Number Formats

jquery put comma between every variable except last

I have a script that will insert the checked checboxes and radios in the value() of an input tag.
var burgernavn = meat + " with " + bread + " and " + onion + tomato + cheese + salad;
$('#burger-navn').val(burgernavn);
Onion, tomato, cheese and salad needs to have1 " ," between them, except the last two who need " and " between them.
Thats the first thing.
Second thing is that these variables represent checkboxes, so they can be undefined, in which case they should not be put into $('#burger-navn').val(). They can all be undefined, in which case no commas or "and" should be put in.
I hope this is accomplishable.

Capture all checked values in an array (this makes sure that whatever values in this array, all are defined). Also, it will give you count of values that you need to pass to input box.
var checkedValues = document.getElementsByClassName('checkbox');
Iterate over this array, check for last values. (Check my comments in below code snippet)
var commaValues = "", otherValues= "";
//we are iterating only until (total values -2)
for(var i = 0; i < checkedValues.length - 2 ; i++){
//append comma with each value
commaValues += checkedValues[i].concat(",");
}
//append 'And' for last two values if total valuesa re more than one
if(checkedValues.length > 1){
otherValues = checkedValues[checkedValues.length-1].concat("and", checkedValues[checkedValues.length])
}
else if(checkedValues.length == 1){
otherValues = checkedValues[0];
}
//finally concat both strings and put this concated string in input
$('#burger-navn').val(otherValues.concat(commaValues));
So, I hope you got the idea. This code snippet might need a bit tweak since I didn't had your html code and sample data, but it is easily doable using this snippet as reference. Cheers

You can do this pretty easy with jQuery $.map.
var checkboxes = $('input:checkbox');
var commaString = $.map($('input:checkbox'), function( ele, i ) {
return $(ele).val() + (i + 2 == checkboxes.length ? " and" : (i + 1 != checkboxes.length) ? ",": "");
}).join(" ");

eval javascript function IE6 taking long time

I have the below chunk of code. I've debugged through and located the snippet that is causing a long delay in IE6.
Basically the code loops through a document converting it to XML and sending to a PDF. On Ubuntu and Firefox 4 it takes 3 seconds. On IE it can take up to 40 seconds regularly.
/**
* This function builds up the XML to be saved to the DM.
*/
function getXMLToSave(){
var text="<workbook><sheet><name>Adv4New</name>";
//show_props(document.adv4.row10col1, "document.adv4.row10col1");
for(i=1;i<157;i++){
text = text + "<row number='" + i + "'>";
for(j=1;j<=7;j++){
text = text + "<col ";
//alert(eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.readonly'));
try{
text = text + "number='" + j + "' label='" + eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.className')+ "'";
}
catch (e) {
text = text + "number='" + j + "' label=''";
}
try {
if(eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j).readOnly)
text = text + " type='readonly'";
else
text = text + " type=''";
}
catch (e) {
text = text + " type=''";
}
try {
text = text + " color='" + eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.style.color') + "'";
}
catch (e) {
text = text + " color=''";
}
text = text + ">";
try {
// don't wrap in a CDATA (like previously), but run cleanNode
// this fixes html entities
var content = eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.value');
text = text + cleanNode(content);
}
catch (e) {
text = text + "0";
}
text = text + "</col>";
}
text = text + "</row>";
}
text = text + "</sheet></workbook>";
return text;
}
I believe its the eval function causing the delay in IE6. Is there a neat solution to fix this. Thanks very much

Why are you using eval in the firts place?
eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.style.color')
Use bracket notation!
document.adv4["row"+i+"col"+j].style.color

You don't need eval() at all:
text = text + "number='" + j + "' label='" + document.adv4['row' + i + 'col' + j].className + "'";
Also, in IE6 (but not in newer browsers), building up large strings by repeatedly adding more content is really, really slow. It was way faster in that browser to build up strings by creating an array of substrings and then joining them all together when finished with all the pieces.

Don't use eval EVAL is EVIL. Having said that, you really shouldn't care about IE6: Even MS doesn't support it any longer, why should you bother?
Anyhow, change all eval calls like:
eval('document.adv4.row'+i+'col'+j+'.value');
to
document.adv4['row' + i + 'col' + j].value;
To access the elements directly. Remember that Nodes are objects, so their properties can be accessed either using the dot-notation (foo.bar) or the "associative array" notation: foo['bar'], the latter being very useful when you need the value of a variable to access properties

Don't use eval - period. The eval() should be renamed to evil(). There is almost no situation where you really need to use the eval function.
In this case you can use document.getElementById() to find a DOM node with a specific id.

It's likely that it's all the string concatentation that makes it slow. Each time you add something to the text, it will copy all the previous text into a new string.
Newer browsers have optimised code for this special case, so for them the impact is less.
Instead of concatenating strings like this:
text = text + "something";
use an array instead:
var text = [];
then add items to the array using the push method:
text.push("<workbook><sheet><name>Adv4New</name>");
Finally just join the strings together:
return text.join('');

One solution could be generating a color array (or maybe an object if you need it) and then using it.
But then, ask yourself the question "Should I really support IE6?"

How can I truncate result titles?

Im using soundclouds api to echo out track information but I'd like to limit the amount of characters shown for each track title result to just 24 chars? I'd also like to be able to set both the track title and artist title to be displayed as capitalised text (first letter capital rest lowercase)
Thanks
<li>Track: ' + track.title + '<BR>Artist: '+ track.user.username + '</li>'

Try this:
function formatter(str) {
if(str.length < 24) {
return str;
} else {
return str.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + str.substr(1,23) + '..';
}
}
<li>Track: ' + formatter(track.title) + '<BR>Artist: '+ formatter(track.user.username) + '</li>'
DEMO

For part 1 of your question, look at substr method. It's a standard method on all JavaScript String objects.
For part 2, capitalizing, check out this question.

You can prepare the short title in advance, first taking the substring and making sure it is lower case:
var shortTitle = track.title.substr(0,24).toLowerCase();
Then use the following to upper case the first letter and use the rest of the lowercase string, adds ...:
// ... HTML ouput by JS ...
document.write(shortTitle.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + shortTitle.slice(1));
if (shortTitle.length > 24)
document.write('...');
// ... HTML output by JS ...
Here in an example.
You can repeat these steps for the author.

Making a value plural (Greater than, Less than) in Javascript

I have the following code:
$(function(){
var total_click = 0;
$("#mapKey a.showKey").click(function(){
total_click = total_click + 1;
$("#counter").text("I cheated " + total_click + " whole" + (total_click = 1 ? + ' time' + ((total_click > 1) ? 's ' : ' ') : ''));
return false;
});
});
I'm trying to have it output as such:
Clicked once: "I cheated 1 whole time."
Clicked more than once: "I cheated X whole times."
-- With an 's' at the end of "times".
The counter is working fine, it's just the last part making the "time" or "times" show up appropriately that I am having difficulty with.
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks!

Here is your problem: total_click = 1. Try changing it to total_click == 1. I don't see why you have that conditional in there however, as it won't work as you expect anyway. Try $("#counter").text("I cheated " + total_click + " whole time" + ((total_click == 1) ? ' ' : 's '));

You are not using the ternary operator correctly, and also assigning total_click to 1 instead of checking its value. I would suggest moving this to a function to simplify things.
function pluralize(singular, times) {
if (times == 1) return singular;
else return singular + 's';
}
Then change the string to
var text = "I cheated " + clicks + " whole " + pluralize("time", clicks);
Here's an example.

$(function(){
var total_click = 0;
$("#mapKey a.showKey").click(function(){
total_click = total_click + 1;
$("#counter").text("I cheated " + total_click + " whole " + (total_click == 1 ? "time" : "times");
return false;
});
});

It's okay to use suggested implementations for a trivial cases, however it will not scale for a bigger set of problems and will not work for multiple languages (or it will get ugly very fast).
With this in mind, I’ve created a very simple JavaScript library that can be used to pluralize words in almost any language. It transparently uses CLDR database for multiple locales. It’s API is very minimalistic and integration is extremely simple. It’s called Numerous.
I’ve also written a small introduction article to it: «How to pluralize any word in different languages using JavaScript?».
Feel free to use it in your project. I will also be glad for your feedback on it!