How to create several new records in another SQL table from one button-click

Question

I'm new here. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I’m working on an app which will ask the user how many items they made. The user will enter a number. My app should then create that many new records in a table called 'Items_Made'.

E.g. The app asks “How many items did you make?”, the user enters “19”, the app then creates 19 new records in the 'Items_Made' table.

I've managed to pull together some code (shown below) that creates ONE new record, but I would like it to create several. I probably need some kind of loop or 'while' function but am unsure how to do so.

var ceateDatasource = app.datasources.Items_Made.modes.create;
var newItem = ceateDatasource.item;
ceateDatasource.createItem();

This code successfully creates 1 record. I would like it to be able to create several.

Answer 1

Creating a lot of records via client script is not recommended, especially if you loose connection or the app gets closed by mistake. In my opinion, the best way to handle this would be via server script for two things: First, It's more reliable and second, it's faster. As in the example from the official documentation, to create a record you need to do something like this:

// Assume a model called "Fruits" with a string field called "Name".
var newRecord = app.models.Fruits.newRecord();
newRecord.Name = "Kiwi";  // properties/fields can be read and written.
app.saveRecords([newRecord]);  // save changes to database.

The example above is a clear example on how to create only one record. To create several records at once, you can use a for statement like this:

  function createRecordsInBulk(){
    var newRecords = [];
    for(var i=0; i<19; i++){
        var newRecord = app.models.Fruits.newRecord();
        newRecord.Name = "Kiwi " + i;
        newRecords.push(newRecord);
    }
    app.saveRecords(newRecords);
  }

In the example above, you initiate newRecords, an empty array that will be responsible for holding all the new records to create at once. Then using a for statement, you generate 19 new records and push them into the newRecords. Finally, once the loop is finished, you save all the records at once by using app.saveRecords and passing the newRecords array as an argument.

Now, all this is happening on the server side. Obviously you need a way to call this from the client side. For that, you need to use the google.script.run method. So from the client side you need to do the following:

  google.script.run.withSuccessHandler(function(result) {
      app.datasources.Fruits.load();
  }).createRecordsInBulk();

All this information is clearly documented on the app maker official documentation site. I strongly suggest you to always check there first as I believe you can get a faster resolution by reading the documentation.