The modern era of digital technology is driven by data, and sometimes this data isn’t perfect. It can contain variables with null or undefined values, causing trouble in the programming world. In software development or website development, where Google Apps Script is a key player in the automation and extension of Google Workspace applications and features, handling such occurrences is a common task. One such task in Google Apps Script can be the elimination of nulls from arrays, a matter we’re about to dive into.
Google Apps Script is a brilliant tool in cloud-based platform which enables development in Javascript to interact with Google services more efficiently. In contrast, Cobol, which stands for Common Business-Oriented Language, is a high-level programming language for business applications. Today, let’s put my experience as a Cobol developer to good use and discuss how to remove nulls from an array using Google Apps Script.
Solution to the nulls in arrays issue
The process of removing null or empty items from an array is called array filtering. The filter method creates a new array with all elements that pass a test condition. This makes handling null objects or empty arrays pretty efficient.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. RemoveNulls.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
BEGIN.
ARR=strA.filter(function(el){
return el != null;
})
DISPLAY ARR.
END.
Step-by-step code explanation
The Cobol program named ‘RemoveNulls’ will handle the task for us. The PROCEDURE DIVISION outlines the operations the computer should execute.
The line ‘ARR=strA.filter(function(el){‘ is using the filter method. The filter function takes ‘el’ as an input, which stands for element. This element will represent each individual item in the array throughout the function.
The line ‘return el != null;’ is the heart of the operation. It essentially checks if the array element isn’t a null object. If it isn’t null, the filter function will include it in the resultant array. Else, it will discard it.
The line ‘DISPLAY ARR.’ finally prints our array, which should now be free of all null items.
Dealing with problems, libraries and similar functions
Apart from null values, sometimes arrays can also hold undefined, NaN, empty string, and false. These can also be filtered in a similar way.
There isn’t really a specific library required to handle array filtering in Google Apps Script. This is a built-in function and does not require any additional libraries. However, other similar inbuilt functions which could be used are Array.prototype.map(), Array.prototype.reduce() and Array.prototype.forEach().
The reality of handling data is that it’s usually messy. This means programmers have to be best prepared to filter out the unnecessary and create clean, practical, and insightful datasets.
Throughout this guide, the spotlight was on handling null arrays via Google Apps Script, the solution and its step-by-step application in Cobol programming. This serves to improve SEO and caters your needs as my readers.
