Adding a row above 1st counted instance - Google Spreadsheet - google-apps-script

Question

I'm attempting to write a script which will enable me to add a single row above the 1st counted instance of a unique value.
Eg.
A
German
German
German
Italian
Italian
French
French
After running the script it should resemble this:
A
DE
German
German
German
IT
Italian
Italian
FR
French
French
What I have written has only gotten as far as identifying how many values are present:
function insertRowAbove()
{
var report = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('REPORT');
var lang = report.getRange('A10:A').getValues();
var positions = report.getRange('A10:A').getA1Notation();
var DE = [];
for (var i = 0; i < lang.length; i++)
{
if (lang[i] == 'German')
{
DE++
report.getRange('A1').setValue(DE);//now I know there are 3 German entries
}
}
}
My question:
Is it possible for the script to know the A1notation of the 1st occurrence of a value and add a row above it? I thank you for any sagely advice.

Answer 1

Your specific question was:
My question: Is it possible for the script to know the A1notation of
the 1st occurrence of a value and add a row above it?
By using a combination of a Boolean to indicate whether you've found any of the items you are looking for, and a couple of Range methods, you can get the A1notation of the first occurrence.
var column = 1; // this example is only using column A
var foundGerman = false;
var firstGerman = '';
...
if (lang[i] == 'German') {
if (!foundGerman) {
foundGerman = true;
firstGerman = range.getCell(i, column).getA1Notation();
}
...
}
After that, you will have the A1Notation of the first cell containing "German".
However, the function insertRowsBefore() is a Sheet method, and expects a row number as a parameter, not A1Notation. So figuring out what the address of the first German cell was turns out to be unnecessary.
Script
Here's my entry in the contest! For speed, it's wise to use as few apps script service calls as possible. In this script, all data manipulation is done using arrays, with the final result written once.
In anticipation that you'll have more than three languages that you care about, and for maintainability, the language lookup is handled by an Object, iso639. (Assuming you're using ISO 639-1 Language Codes.) As a result, the actual work takes just 10 lines of code!
function insertViaArray() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('REPORT');
var values = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
var newValues = [];
var iso639 =
{
"German" : "DE",
"Italian" : "IT",
"French" : "FR"
}
var curLang = '';
for (var i in values) {
if (values[i][0] !== curLang) {
curLang = values[i][0];
newValues.push([iso639[curLang]]);
}
newValues.push([values[i][0]]);
}
sheet.getRange(1, 1, newValues.length, 1).setValues(newValues)
};
Edit Script V2
By using Array.splice() to insert the language tags, we can further reduce the code to 8 working lines, and eliminate the need for a parallel newValues array.
function insertViaArrayV2() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('REPORT');
var values = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
var iso639 =
{
"German" : "DE",
"Italian" : "IT",
"French" : "FR"
}
var curLang = '';
for (var i = 0; i < values.length; i++) {
if (values[i][0] !== curLang) {
curLang = values[i][0];
values.splice(i, 0, [iso639[curLang]]);
}
}
sheet.getRange(1, 1, values.length, 1).setValues(values)
};

Answer 2

The following works (see EXAMPLE):
function insertRowAbove() {
var report = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('Insert Row Above');
var values = report.getRange('B2:B').getValues();
var prevVal = "null";
var index = 1;
while (index < values.length) {
if (values[index].toString() != prevVal.toString()) {
var header = 'unknown';
if (values[index] == 'German')
header = 'DE';
else if (values[index] == 'Italian')
header = 'IT';
else if (values[index] == 'French')
header = 'FR';
report.insertRowBefore(index+1);
report.getRange(index+1, 2).setValue(header);
values = report.getRange('B2:B').getValues();
index++;
}
prevVal = values[index];
index++;
}
}

Answer 3

This is kind of a funny exercise and, as usual, there are probably many ways to get it working.
I'm not pretending my approach is better, it's just different and therefor it it probably worth showing it here ;-)
function testFunction() {
var sh = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var data = sh.getRange('A10:A').getValues();
var rowNum = 11;
var previous = data[0][0];
Logger.log(data)
sh.insertRowBefore(10);
sh.getRange(2,1).setValue(firstLetters(data[0][0]));
for(n=1;n<data.length;++n){
if(data[n][0].replace(/ /g,'')==previous.replace(/ /g,'')){
previous = data[n][0] ;
++rowNum ;
continue ;
}else if(firstLetters(data[n][0])){
sh.insertRowBefore(rowNum+1);
sh.getRange(rowNum+1,1).setValue(firstLetters(data[n][0]));
++rowNum
previous = data[n][0]
++rowNum
Logger.log(rowNum+' '+firstLetters(data[n][0]))
}else{
break
}
}
}
function firstLetters(name){
if (name==''){return false}
var str = name.toString().replace(/ /g,'').toUpperCase().substring(0,2);
if (str=='GE') {str='DE'};// handle german exception
if (str=='PO'){ str='PT'} ;//handle portuguese exception
return str;
}