DocumentApp replaceText regex syntax

Question

I am looking for regular expression syntax that will replace all types of special characters.

I have a Google document with question titles between << and >> markers. I am trying to replace all markers with the form response (for simplicity I am replacing it with a blank value ' ' in the script example below).

My current script:

var form = FormApp.getActiveForm();
var body = DocumentApp.openById('').getBody();
var items = form.getItems();
  for(i=0;i<items.length;i++){
    body.replaceText('<<items[i].getTitle()>>','');
 }

This falls over when a user includes a question mark ?, brackets () or an apostrophe ' (and I am sure many others) in their question title.

beano · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-25 06:30:35Z

2

You can consider escaping the special characters such as '*?()|' that are used in regular expressions. Here's a sample:

  var form = FormApp.getActiveForm();
  var body = DocumentApp.openById('').getBody();
  var items = form.getItems();
  for(i=0;i<items.length;i++){
    var title = items[i].getTitle();
    title = title.replace(/[-[\]{}()*+?.,\\^$|#\s]/g, '\\$&');    
    body.replaceText("<<" + title + ">>",'');
  }

edited Nov 25, 2017 at 6:30

beano

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answered Nov 23, 2017 at 12:32

Amit Agarwal

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1 Comment

beano Over a year ago

Thanks very much Amit

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