CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-apps-scriptgoogle-docsdocument
Thomas Pourbaix
Thomas Pourbaix

Reputation: 11

dot replacement with replaceText apps script google document (not sheets)

I am trying to replace dots "." with other strings in a google document using Google apps script.

My code below does not seem to do anything. Do you have any idea why ? (EDIT : it now does something)

Many thanks !

var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

body.replaceText(".", "mmmmm"); // EDIT replace any literal character 
body.replaceText("\.", "mmmmm"); // EDIT : replacement done !

Upvotes: 1

Views: 176

Answers (1)

andrewJames
andrewJames

Reputation: 21910

You need to double the backslashes "\\.".

Try this:

function myFunction() {
  var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();
  console.log( body.getText() );
  body.replaceText("\\.", "xyz");
  console.log( body.getText() );
}

If the input is this:

Some text. More. done

Then the output will be this:

Some textxyz Morexyz done

Additional notes

When you provide your regex inside a string "...", then this needs to account for the fact that string literals can contain escape characters, where the \ has a specific meaning (the start of an escape sequence).

For example, in "foo\tbar" the \t is a tab character.

To counteract this special meaning of \ in a string literal, you must first escape the \, so that it can then be used by the regular expression correctly - as a regular expression escape character and not as a string literal escape character.

Upvotes: 3

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