How to use Google Apps Script to bring in Spreadsheet values efficiently - google-apps-script

Question

I currently use the following code to bring in many values from a spreadsheet
myValues["TitleText"] = ss.getRange('B9').getValue();
I then display the values in a index.html form using the same Google Apps Script like
<div id="title"><?= data.TitleText ?></div>
I was wondering if I should use something else. Maybe like an ArrayFormula?
I guess it looks to me like I am taking many trips back to the sheet to get all of the values that I need. It would be nice to get all values in one visit thus speeding up the loading and processing of the form.
If a one trip approach is possible; what would it look like?

Answer 1

If the data is in an array, there is no "built-in" way to associate one value with another value. With an object, you can associate the "key" with the "value". There are ways to do the same thing with arrays, but it's a lot "trickier". Whether you should use an array or an object, depends on the "bigger picture". If you want to associate a title with a value, and the position of the title and value could be changing in the spreadsheet, then it MIGHT make sense to compile the data in an object before sending it to your HTML. But then there is the issue of performance. It can be better to construct the HTML in the server code, and then send the HTML string back to the client, and not just the data.
If you have lots of scriptlets, you might try having just one printing scriptlet, create the HTML string in the ".gs" server code, and then send the HTML back instead of sending just the data back.
If you compile the data in some special format, send the data, then you need to unscramble the data and construct the HTML, that might be more processing than just building the HTML from the start in the server code.
The getRange() method has four different parameter configurations. You are using the a1Notation variation. I would use this variation:
getRange(starting row, starting column, number of Rows, number of Columns)
Then you can use code like this:
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('the sheet name');
var allData = sheet
.getRange(1, 1, sheet.getLastRow(), sheet.getLastColumn())
.getValues();
If you only want to get the values in column B, starting in row 2, you can do this:
var colB_Data = sheet
.getRange(2, 2, sheet.getLastRow())
.getValues();
The getValues() method returns a two dimensional array. But if you are only getting one column of data, all the inner arrays only have one element. If you need a one dimensional array, you can (in this case) convert the two dimensional array to a one dimensional array with:
colB_Data = colB_Data.toString().split(",");