How to find and replace special characters in Google Doc using Apps Script?-CodePudding

I need to replace certain sets of characters in a Google Doc with others. I'm new to Javascript so I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, but here's the code I've been using: old_characters is what's in the Doc and new_characters is what I'm replacing them with, and I've capped the loop at 40 because that's the max number of times I need to do it in the doc.

const doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument()
const body = doc.getBody();

var z = 1

while (z < 41) {
    body.findText(old_characters)
      .getElement()
      .asText()
      .setText(new_characters)
  z  
}
  doc.saveAndClose

It works fine for some sets of characters, like changing " AM" (from 5 AM) to "am" (to 5am). But I run into issues when trying to change ".." into "." or ":00" into "" (to get rid of double periods, and change times from 5:00 AM to 5am). Nothing happens.

I've used ".." and regex /.{2}/ to identify the double period, for example, and try to replace with "." but they aren't replaced.

I'd also like to delete a bunch of empty space from the end of the document, without deleting the occasional empty line earlier in the doc, and not sure how.

CodePudding user response：

Probably you could make the changes with this code:

function main() {
  var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();

  var old_characters = 'AM';
  var new_characters = 'am';
  doc.replaceText(old_characters, new_characters);

  old_characters = '\\.\\.';
  new_characters = '.';
  doc.replaceText(old_characters, new_characters);

  old_characters = ':00';
  new_characters = '';
  doc.replaceText(old_characters, new_characters);
}

Or the same algorithm in more fancy style:

function main() {
  const doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();

  const replaces = [
    {what: 'AM',     to: 'am'},
    {what: '\\.\\.', to: '.'},
    {what: ':00',    to: ''},
  ]

  replaces.forEach(replace => doc.replaceText(replace.what, replace.to));
}

replaceText(searchPattern, replacement)