Google Apps Script - get URL of File in Drive with File Name - google-apps-script

Question

I am attempting to create a form in Google Spreadsheets which will pull an image file from my Drive based on the name of the file and insert it into a cell. I've read that you can't currently do this directly through Google Scripts, so I'm using setFormula() adn the =IMAGE() function in the target cell to insert the image. However, I need the URL of the image in order to do this. I need to use the name of the file to get the URL, since the form concatenates a unique numerical ID into a string to use the standardized naming convention for these files. My issue is that, when I use getFilesByName, it returns a File Iteration, and I need a File in order to use getUrl(). Below is an snippet of my code which currently returns the error "Cannot find function getUrl in object FileIterator."
var poNumber = entryFormSheet.getRange(2, 2);
var proofHorizontal = drive.getFilesByName('PO ' + poNumber + ' Proof Horizontal.png').getUrl();
packingInstructionsSheet.getRange(7, 1).setFormula('IMAGE(' + proofHorizontal + ')');

Answer 1

If you know the file name exactly, You can use DriveApp to search the file and getUrl()
function getFile(name) {
var files = DriveApp.getFilesByName(name);
while (files.hasNext()) {
var file = files.next();
//Logs all the files with the given name
Logger.log('Name:'+file.getName()+'\nUrl'+ file.getUrl());
}
}
If you don't know the name exactly, You can use DriveApp.searchFiles() method.

Answer 2

You're close - once you have the FileIterator, you need to advance it to obtain a File, i.e. call FileIterator.next().
If multiple files can have the same name, the file you want may not be the first one. I recommend checking this in your script, just in case:
var searchName = "PO + .....";
var results = DriveApp.getFilesByName(searchName);
var result = "No matching files";
while (results.hasNext()) {
var file = results.next();
if (file.getMimeType() == MimeType. /* pick your image type here */ ) {
result = "=IMAGE( .... " + file.getUrl() + ")");
if (results.hasNext()) console.warn("Multiple files found for search '%s'", searchName);
break;
}
}
sheet.getRange( ... ).setFormula(result);
You can view the available MimeTypes in documentation