应用程序脚本中的Google Fusion Table REST Api与高级服务Fusion Table Services

Question

I am very confused about the correct or recommended mechanism to use for accessing google fusion tables APIs in app scripts. There seem to be two methods with examples but no discussion about which is preferred or why. Is one of these interfaces newer and preferred while the other is dying? Is one obsolete or more restricted in what it can do?

Method 1 is the REST API described here

https://developers.google.com/fusiontables/docs/v2/sql-reference#Select

Method 2 is a set of library functions sort of described here under the Apps Script/Google Advanced Services:

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/advanced/fusion-tables

For example, using the REST api to do a dql query, we end up with something like this:

function runSQL(sql){
  var getDataURL = 'https://www.googleapis.com/fusiontables/v1/query?sql='+sql;
  var dataResponse = UrlFetchApp.fetch(getDataURL,getUrlFetchOptions()).getContentText();  
  return dataResponse;
}

And using the advanced API we use something like this:

result = FusionTables.Query.sql(sql, { hdrs: false });

The REST API seems much harder to use, requireing complex oAuth and developer keys to be configured in advance and coded into the application while the Advanced Services API harvests all this behind the scenes and makes for simple API calls like I show here.

I have seen numerous examples using each of the above with no hint as to why one author chose her mechanism instead of the other.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The service within app-script is a work in progress, so the full functionality of the API might not be fully supported at the moment. As you mentioned though, the big advantage of the service over the REST API is that you do not have to handle the OAuth flow, as you only need to enable it on your script (as stated here ).

Answer 2

The Apps Script "advanced service" implementation still lacks some advanced functionality (like alt=media format queries or multipart / resumable uploads) -- if it actually has those features, it lacks extremely basic documentation of them, to the point that the Apps Script editor autocomplete is unaware of them. The tradeoff of these functionality gaps is that you don't need to handle keys, request building, etc.

So, if you're doing simple sql select / importRows work, the Advanced Service should be able to cover almost all your needs. If you need to delete from your FusionTables, you might want to consider setting up the REST API - because deleting is 1 record per query, the better way to delete is to instead "download what you want to keep, then re-upload it back via replaceRows ."

(This worked for me for a while, but eventually what I was keeping outgrew the Apps Script service's limitations and I began receiving Empty Response errors from the call to replaceRows . My remedy was to perform my record maintenance tasks via the REST API, where I can specify resumable uploads, timeouts, etc., while more "normal" interactions are done through the Advanced Service.)