How to pass data from one column to another one ? - google-apps-script

Question

I have a spreadsheet with multiple rows and columns. Two columns (column 3&4) are filled with text. I want to clean the text from this two columns and delete every specific characters (newlines, comma, exclamation point, quote,etc...). So I wrote the following script :
function testwoD() {
var input = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Raw_data");
var output = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Raw_data");
var row_count = input.getLastRow()
var col_count = input.getLastColumn();
raw_data = input.getRange(1, 1,row_count,col_count).getValues()
temp3 = []
for (var i = 0; i < row_count; i++) {
var punctRE = /[\u2000-\u206F\u2E00-\u2E7F\\'!"#$%&()*+,\-.\/:;<=>?#\[\]^_`{|}~\r\n|\n|\r]/g;
var spaceRE = /\s+/g;
temp3.push(raw_data[i][4].toString().replace(punctRE, '').replace(spaceRE, ' '));
}
temp4 = []
for (var i = 0; i < row_count; i++) {
var punctRE = /[\u2000-\u206F\u2E00-\u2E7F\\'!"#$%&()*+,\-.\/:;<=>?#\[\]^_`{|}~\r\n|\n|\r]/g;
var spaceRE = /\s+/g;
temp4.push(raw_data[i][3].toString().replace(punctRE, '').replace(spaceRE, ' '));
}
var toAddArray3 = [];
for (i = 0; i < temp3.length; ++i){
toAddArray3.push([temp3[i]]);
}
var toAddArray4 = [];
for (i = 0; i < temp4.length; ++i){
toAddArray4.push([temp4[i]]);
}
output.getRange(1, col_count-13,row_count,1).setValues(toAddArray3);
output.getRange(1, col_count-14,row_count,1).setValues(toAddArray4);
}
It's working but It's very complicated and confusing. I made it step-by-step so even myself have some difficulties to really explain it.
Is there a way to significantly improve it ?
Best,
Simon.

Answer 1

DRY! - Do not repeat yourself.
Another popular idiom should be UMNF - Use map not for.
Putting everything into its own function encapsulates functionality and puts the focus on what you want to do with the data at each level rather than bookkeeping indices and subscripts.
function cleanColumns() {
var input = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Sheet1");
var output = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Sheet1");
var raw_data = input.getDataRange().getValues();
var columnsToClean = [3,4];
function cleanText(t) {
var punctRE = /[\u2000-\u206F\u2E00-\u2E7F\\'!"#$%&()*+,\-.\/:;<=>?#\[\]^_`{|}~\r\n|\n|\r]/g;
var spaceRE = /\s+/g;
return t.toString().replace(punctRE, "").replace(spaceRE, " ");
};
function cleanColumn(col) {
return raw_data
.map(function(row) {return row[col];})
.map(cleanText)
.map(function(row) {return [row];})
};
function cleanAndWrite(col) {
var data = cleanColumn(col);
output.getRange(1, col + 1, data.length, 1).setValues(data);
}
columnsToClean.forEach(cleanAndWrite);
}