What is VBA's format function equivalent in Google Scripts/Sheets? - google-apps-script

Question

I'm having some trouble to achieve next VBA code's goal in Google Scripts (changing the number format of a variable adding zeros at the left up to figures)
'VBA CODE
sub addingZeros()
dim num1 as double
'Cell A1's value is 1, so I get 0001
num1 = format(thisWorkbook.Sheets("MySheet").range("A1"),"0000")
end sub
When I was researching, everything pointed out to use the setNumberFormat function, which is not a solution for me, because makes me to change the number in the sheet and I need only to change the variable value for further purposes... There was only one different solution in those I found, which uses a text function but I couldn't make it work (link for that solution)
I'd like a code similar to this:
//Google Scripts CODE
function myFunction() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById(`XXXXXXXXXXXXX`);
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('MySheet');
var num1 = format(sheet.getRange('a1').getValue(),"0000");
//Cell A1's value is 1, so I'm expecting to get 0001
Logger.log(num1);
};
All the help will be much appreciated.
Antonio

Answer 1

I believe your goal as follows.
You want to retrieve a value from a cell and you want to convert the format from 1 to 0001.
You want to achieve this using Google Apps Script.
Pattern 1:
In this pattern, Utilities.formatString is used.
Sample script:
function myFunction() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById(`XXXXXXXXXXXXX`);
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('MySheet');
var res = Utilities.formatString("%04d", sheet.getRange("A2").getValue()); // Modified
Logger.log(res)
}
In this modification, the value of 1 is retrieved from the cell "A1" and the format is converted to 0001 using Utilities.formatString.
Pattern 2:
In this pattern, setNumberFormat is used.
Sample script:
function myFunction() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById(`XXXXXXXXXXXXX`);
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('MySheet');
var res = sheet.getRange("A1").setNumberFormat("0000").getDisplayValue(); // Modified
Logger.log(res)
}
In this modification, the format of cell "A1" is changed using setNumberFormat and retrieved the display value using getDisplayValue.
Note:
These modified scripts are the simple modification. So please modify them for your actual situation.
References:
formatString(template, args)
setNumberFormat(numberFormat)
getDisplayValue()