Declare with let
This post is a corrected post after AI explains the code included in the book “Google Apps Script 101: Building Work Automation For Free”. Added a strikethrough when editing what AI has written, and added color when edited by author
Table of Contents
Summary
In this blog post, we’ll dive into a simple Apps Script code snippet that demonstrates how to declare handle variables with let in JavaScript. Apps Script is a scripting language used for automating tasks in various Google Workspace applications, such as Google Sheets, Docs, and Forms. Understanding how to work with variables is essential for efficient and effective script development.
Code
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function variables2() { let value = 1; Logger.log(value); let value = 2; Logger.log(value); } |
Code Explanation
The provided code snippet represents a function named variables2().
Within this function, two variables with the same name, value, are declared using the let
keyword, which allows block-scoped variable declarations.
However, declaring two variables with the same name in the same scope is not allowed in JavaScript, which results in an error. To fix this, we should give each variable a unique name.
Let’s modify the code to demonstrate the proper way to handle variables.
Example
Let’s consider a scenario where we want to track the count of items in a shopping cart using variables in Apps Script. We’ll create a function that updates the cart and another function to display the cart’s item count. Additionally, we’ll avoid re-declaring variables with the same name to prevent errors. Here’s the revised code:
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let cartItemCount = 0; function addToCart(itemCount) { cartItemCount += itemCount; } function displayCartItemCount() { Logger.log('Cart Item Count: ' + cartItemCount); } |
Now, we have declared a single variable cartItemCount outside any function to make it accessible
across functions. The addToCart() function takes an argument itemCount and adds it to
the cart’s item count.
The displayCartItemCount() function logs the cart’s item count to the console. This way, we can
efficiently manage the cart’s item count without any conflicts.
In this part, AI has created examples that are out of context, making it difficult for readers to understand. Rather, it would be better to present the code finally presented by AI below as a revision.
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function variables2(){ let value = 1 Logger.log(value) let newValue = 2 Logger.log(newValue) } |
AI Prompt
To generate the revised code snippet provided in this blog post, input the following AI prompt into an AI-based code generation tool:
Generate apps script a function named variables2 that logs two variables to the console. Declare a variable ‘value’ and assign it the value 1. Then declare another variable ‘newValue’ and assign it the value 2. Finally, log both variables.
