Improve Performance of Google Apps Script with Memoization
How to use JavaScript memoization to optimize and improve the performance of your Google Apps Script code.
A folder in Google Drive contains a bunch of CSV files and you are required to write a Google Script to find a particular value in the CSV files. The solution is simple:
- Use the Drive API to get a list of CSV files in the specified folder.
- Parse the CSV files one by one using the
Utilities.parseCsv()function. - Read the CSV file, line by line, until the value is found and return the line number.
const findContentInCSVFiles = (folderId, searchString) => {
const folder = DriveApp.getFolderById(folderId);
const files = folder.getFilesByType('text/csv');
while (files.hasNext()) {
const file = files.next();
const fileContent = file.getBlob().getDataAsString();
const linesOfData = Utilities.parseCsv(fileContent, ',');
let found = false;
let lineNumber = 0;
for (; lineNumber < linesOfData.length && !found; lineNumber += 1) {
const line = linesOfData[lineNumber];
found = line.find((element) => element === searchString);
}
if (found) {
return `${searchString} found in line #${lineNumber + 1} of file ${file.getName()}`;
}
}
return 'String not found :(';
};Optimize Google Script Performance
The code to read CSV files and find the required value is simple but not efficient. You’ve to perform the same expensive operation for every value that you have to search in the folder of CSV files.
Memoization is a simple optimization technique that can be used to improve the performance of your Google Apps Script code. The basic idea is that you cache the results of an expensive function call using closures. If the function is called again with the same arguments, the cached result is returned instead of calling and executing the function all over again.
const memoize = (func) => {
// Cache for storing the previously computed results
const cache = {};
return (...args) => {
// Serializer to convert N arguments to a string
const key = JSON.stringify(args);
if (typeof cache[key] === 'undefined') {
cache[key] = func(...args);
}
return cache[key];
};
};
const memoizedFindFunction = memoize(findContentInCSVFiles);
const findContentInFiles = () => {
const FOLDER_ID = '<<folder id>>';
const SEARCH_STRING = 'hello world!';
const response = memoizedFindFunction(FOLDER_ID, SEARCH_STRING);
Logger.log(resonse);
};The memoization function is called with the arguments of the original function. The result of the function is stored in a cache and returned when the same arguments are passed again.
Amit Agarwal
Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion
Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.
Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory
