Automatically add variables to array? - google-apps-script

Question

In a google script I have written something to check my monthly expenses, which are listed in a google sheet.
Based on words the script finds, every line gets a category tag. It works fine, but the number of words to search for is getting big. And the array is getting big too.
I have listed 6 pairs (words to find, tag to add) - but in real version I have as many as 35. How can I create the pairs, and load everything automatically in the array?
This is my script:
function myFunction() {
// check usual suspects
var A1 = ["CAFE", "HORECA"]
var A2 = ["ALBERT", "AH"]
var A3 = ["VOMAR","Vomar"]
var A4 = ["HEMA","HEMA"]
var A5 = ["KRUID","Drogist"]
var A6 = ["RESTA", "Horeca"]
// in Array
var expenses = [A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6]
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var data = ss.getDataRange().getValues(); // read all data in the sheet
for (i in expenses)
{for(n=0;n<data.length;++n){ // iterate row by row and examine data in column A
if(data[n][3].toString().toUpperCase().match(expenses[i][0])==expenses[i][0]){ data[n][4] = expenses[i][1]};
// if column D contains 'xyz' then set value in index [5] (is column E)
}
Logger.log(data)
ss.getRange(1,1,data.length,data[0].length).setValues(data); // write back to the sheet
}
}

Answer 1

I can propose you that:
function multiPass(){
var searchCriterions = [
["CAFE","HORECA" ],
["ALBERT", "AH"],
["VOMAR","Vomar"],
["HEMA","HEMA"]
];
var dico = {};
var patt = "";
for (var i in searchCriterions) {
dico[searchCriterions[i][0]] = searchCriterions[i][1];
patt += "("+searchCriterions[i][0]+")";
if((Number(i)+1)<searchCriterions.length){
patt += "|";
}
}
var re = new RegExp(patt,"");
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var data = ss.getDataRange().getValues(); // read all data in the sheet
Logger.log(re);
for(n=0;n<data.length;++n){ // iterate row by row and examine data in column A
// THAT'S NOT COLUMN "A", 3 --> "D"
var test = data[n][3].toString().toUpperCase().match(re);
Logger.log(test);
if(test!==null){
data[n][4] = dico[test[0]]
};
}
ss.getRange(1,1,data.length,data[0].length).setValues(data); // write back to the sheet
}
instead of using variable for your "pairs" prefer to use a big table (it's less painfull to write)
then transform your pairs in object to quickly access the second argument of the pair and create a big regexp that check at once all the keywords instead of parsing them one by one.
Now as we are using a big array as search criterions we can totally imagine that this big array is loaded instead of hard coding it. If you have a sheet where the data is you can change the code this way:
var searchCriterions = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getRange("namedRange").getValues();