Can I use Google Visualization API to query a spreadsheet in apps script?

Question

I have a Google Spreadsheet with about 3000 rows of data (and about 30 columns). The data is laid out in standard fashion with column headers and one row per data item. The

Answer 1

Unfortunately it's not currently possible to directly load Google Visualisation API in a Google Apps Script project. You do have a couple of options though:

1. Use the noSQL storage build into Google Apps Script (ScriptDb) to read the spreadsheet into a database before querying the response.

2. Forget querying the data in Apps Script and use the QUERY formula in a sheet (this uses the same syntax as the Google Visualization API Query Language

3. If using old Sheets you can File > Publish to the web and then query the data in your script using the URL Fetch Service and calling the data by Setting the Query in the Data Source URL <- the problem with this way is you've potentially got a lot of work to process the returned data which can be html, csv or json. This simple tool helps you build the datasource url.

Personally, depending on the scenario, I'd try #2 but failing that go with #1

Answer 2

I've managed to use UrlFetchApp to get the data.

• The file must be shared publicly ("everyone with a link can view" is enough)

Usage

function test_getSheetsQueryResult()
{
  var fileId = '1WO3PEycHGtfG-yd4V-B6EfKkVYMC73EqDBPqgAqcz3k';
  var sheetName = 'Data';
  var rangeA1 = 'A1:H11';
  var sqlText = "select A, C, D, F, 'google' where E > 0";

  var res = getSheetsQueryResult_(fileId, sheetName, rangeA1, sqlText);
  Logger.log(res);      

}

Code:

/*   
  Types:

    Get             Return
    number    =>    number
    string    =>    string
    date      =>    string
    datetime  =>    string
    boolean   =>    boolean

  Note: 

    The function returns strings for dates because of 2 resons:
      1. The string is automatically converted into a date when pasted into the sheet
      2. There are multiple issues with dates (like different time zones) that could modify returned values
*/
function getSheetsQueryResult_(fileId, sheetName, rangeA1, sqlText)
{

  var file = SpreadsheetApp.openById(fileId);
  var sheetId = file.getSheetByName(sheetName).getSheetId();

  var request = 'https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/' + fileId + '/gviz/tq?gid=' + sheetId + '&range=' + rangeA1 + '&tq=' + encodeURIComponent(sqlText);
  var result = UrlFetchApp.fetch(request).getContentText();     
  // get json object
  var from = result.indexOf("{");
  var to   = result.lastIndexOf("}")+1;  
  var jsonText = result.slice(from, to);  
  var parsedText = JSON.parse(jsonText);      

  // get types
  var types = [];
  var addType_ = function(col) { types.push(col.type); }
  var cols = parsedText.table.cols;
  cols.forEach(addType_);    

  // loop rows
  var rows = parsedText.table.rows;  
  var result = [];  
  var rowQuery = [];
  var eltQuery = {};
  var row = [];
  var nRows = rows[0].c.length;
  var type = '';
  for (var i = 0, l = rows.length; i < l; i++)
  {
    rowQuery = rows[i].c;
    row = [];
    // loop values   
    for (var k = 0; k < nRows; k++)
    {
      eltQuery = rowQuery[k];
      type = types[k];
      if (type === 'number') { row.push(parseInt(eltQuery.v)); }
      if (type === 'boolean' || type === 'string') { row.push(eltQuery.v); }
      else { row.push(eltQuery.f); }      
    }    
    result.push(row);
  }

  return result;

}