Troubles with importing CSV to Google Sheet

Question

I have a .csv file with 3000+ lines posted to a GDrive folded every morning, and I need to import data from that .csv into an existing Spreadsheet.

I had the following script that worked perfectly for a while, but it's been failing recently with the "Exception: Could not parse text." error. I triple-checked the .csv and confirmed the delimiter is correct.

function importOpps() {

  var file = DriveApp.getFilesByName("Opportunity Report.csv").next();
  var csvString = file.getBlob().getDataAsString()
  
    var sanitizedString = csvString.replace(/(["'])(?:(?=(\\?))\2[\s\S])*?\1/g, function(e){return e.replace(/\r?\n|\r/g, ' ') });
    Logger.log(sanitizedString)
  var csvData = Utilities.parseCsv(sanitizedString);
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('opp');
  sheet.getRange("A:AM").clear();
  sheet.getRange(1, 1, csvData.length, csvData[0].length).setValues(csvData);

}

I tried to find some workarounds and came across the following solution, which works for my case, but it takes forever to run.

function importData() {
  var fSource = DriveApp.getFolderById('1Q3YU044I4g6SC3sRA37Gd3ezSJU5-O-i'); // reports_folder_id = id of folder where csv reports are saved
  var fi = fSource.getFilesByName('SF Opportunity Report.csv'); // latest report file
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById('1E1RMG45Vtt0_gilDMnLTfWML_y4MSLqmH1dbCkL0UTM'); // data_sheet_id = id of spreadsheet that holds the data to be updated with new report data

  if ( fi.hasNext() ) { // proceed if "report.csv" file exists in the reports folder
    var file = fi.next();
    var csv = file.getBlob().getDataAsString();
    var csvData = CSVToArray(csv); // see below for CSVToArray function
    var newsheet = ss.insertSheet('NEWDATA'); // create a 'NEWDATA' sheet to store imported data
    // loop through csv data array and insert (append) as rows into 'NEWDATA' sheet
    for ( var i=0, lenCsv=csvData.length; i<lenCsv; i++ ) {
      newsheet.getRange(i+1, 1, 1, csvData[i].length).setValues(new Array(csvData[i]));
    }
    /*
    ** report data is now in 'NEWDATA' sheet in the spreadsheet - process it as needed,
    ** then delete 'NEWDATA' sheet using ss.deleteSheet(newsheet)
    */
    // rename the report.csv file so it is not processed on next scheduled run
    file.setName("report-"+(new Date().toString())+".csv");
  }
};


// http://www.bennadel.com/blog/1504-Ask-Ben-Parsing-CSV-Strings-With-Javascript-Exec-Regular-Expression-Command.htm
// This will parse a delimited string into an array of
// arrays. The default delimiter is the comma, but this
// can be overriden in the second argument.

function CSVToArray( strData, strDelimiter ) {
  // Check to see if the delimiter is defined. If not,
  // then default to COMMA.
  strDelimiter = (strDelimiter || "\t");

  // Create a regular expression to parse the CSV values.
  var objPattern = new RegExp(
    (
      // Delimiters.
      "(\\" + strDelimiter + "|\\r?\\n|\\r|^)" +

      // Quoted fields.
      "(?:\"([^\"]*(?:\"\"[^\"]*)*)\"|" +

      // Standard fields.
      "([^\"\\" + strDelimiter + "\\r\\n]*))"
    ),
    "gi"
  );

  // Create an array to hold our data. Give the array
  // a default empty first row.
  var arrData = [[]];

  // Create an array to hold our individual pattern
  // matching groups.
  var arrMatches = null;

  // Keep looping over the regular expression matches
  // until we can no longer find a match.
  while (arrMatches = objPattern.exec( strData )){

    // Get the delimiter that was found.
    var strMatchedDelimiter = arrMatches[ 1 ];

    // Check to see if the given delimiter has a length
    // (is not the start of string) and if it matches
    // field delimiter. If id does not, then we know
    // that this delimiter is a row delimiter.
    if (
      strMatchedDelimiter.length &&
      (strMatchedDelimiter != strDelimiter)
    ){

      // Since we have reached a new row of data,
      // add an empty row to our data array.
      arrData.push( [] );

    }

    // Now that we have our delimiter out of the way,
    //let's check to see which kind of value we
    // captured (quoted or unquoted).
    if (arrMatches[ 2 ]){

      // We found a quoted value. When we capture
      // this value, unescape any double quotes.
      var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 2 ].replace(
        new RegExp( "\"\"", "g" ),
        "\""
      );

    } else {

      // We found a non-quoted value.
      var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 3 ];

    }

    // Now that we have our value string, let's add
    // it to the data array.
    arrData[ arrData.length - 1 ].push( strMatchedValue );
  }

  // Return the parsed data.
  return( arrData );
};

Any idea what can be wrong with the first script? In the .csv file, I have a field with users` comments so I assume that it may be that some special characters were used in that field breaking the parseCSV(). I am struggling to find the root cause of the issue. I am not good at code, so I would appreciate any help on this.

Answer 1

I believe your goal is as follows.

• From I have my .csv in the GDrive and not as a link., you want to retrieve the CSV data from a file and put to a Spreadsheet.

I thought that this sample script might be useful. But from your comment, I could know that you want to retrieve the CSV data from a file on Google Drive. This sample script retrieves the CSV data from a URL. For your situation, I modify this sample script for your situation. So this modified script can be used for the CSV data retrieved from Google Drive.

Sample script:

Before you use this script, please enable Sheets API at Advanced Google services. And please modify your script as follows.

From:

function importOpps() {

  var file = DriveApp.getFilesByName("Opportunity Report.csv").next();
  var csvString = file.getBlob().getDataAsString()
  
    var sanitizedString = csvString.replace(/(["'])(?:(?=(\\?))\2[\s\S])*?\1/g, function(e){return e.replace(/\r?\n|\r/g, ' ') });
    Logger.log(sanitizedString)
  var csvData = Utilities.parseCsv(sanitizedString);
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('opp');
  sheet.getRange("A:AM").clear();
  sheet.getRange(1, 1, csvData.length, csvData[0].length).setValues(csvData);

}

To:

function importOpps() {
  var file = DriveApp.getFilesByName("Opportunity Report.csv").next();
  var csvString = file.getBlob().getDataAsString();
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
  var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('opp');
  sheet.getRange("A:AM").clear();
  SpreadsheetApp.flush();
  var req = { pasteData: { data: csvString, delimiter: ",", coordinate: { sheetId: sheet.getSheetId() } } };
  Sheets.Spreadsheets.batchUpdate({requests: [req]}, ss.getId());
}

• When your CSV data uses the specific delimiter, please set delimiter: ",".

References:

• Related thread.
  • Google script getRange Set Values doesn't always match
• Method: spreadsheets.batchUpdate
• PasteDataRequest