How do I search Google Spreadsheets?

Question

I am doing a few exhaustive searches and need to determine if a new domain (URL) is already in a Spreadsheet. However, none of the Spreadsheet objects have search functions, namely findText() found in most Document objects. I feel like I am missing something significant. What am I missing?

findText function: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/class_table#findText

SearchResult object: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/class_searchresult

Spreadsheet object: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/class_sheet

My best guess is to try and convert specific Spreadsheet ranges in Document tables, then perform the search. Mendokusai

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no searching functionality in the Spreadsheet services. You can get the data for the range you are searching on, and then iterate over it looking for a match. Here's a simple function that does that:

/**
 * Finds a value within a given range. 
 * @param value The value to find.
 * @param range The range to search in.
 * @return A range pointing to the first cell containing the value, 
 *     or null if not found.
 */
function find(value, range) {
  var data = range.getValues();
  for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    for (var j = 0; j < data[i].length; j++) {
      if (data[i][j] == value) {
        return range.getCell(i + 1, j + 1);
      }
    }
  }
  return null;
}