Grouptabs – Export as CSV

One advantage of using the same software again and again is that the process and toolsets are already established and proven. Grouptabs uses CouchDB as its backend, a database that I have been using for various purposes for a long time. I have toolset and process for CouchDB.

In this case, I wanted a way to download or export all the transactions in a tab/group such as CSV. Our flow here involves utilizing CouchDB's REST APIs to retrieve the data, formatting it in Javascript, and then downloading it as a CSV. We do this using Greasemonkey/Violentmonkey—yet another familiar tool.

We use AJAX to call CouchDBs _all_docs API endpoint, and we will get the complete document.

function grouptabs() {
//    GM.notification("grouptabs", "start");
    var url = document.URL;
    var extractedValue = url.split('/').pop();
//    GM.notification("grouptabs",extractedValue);
    var db_path ="https://backend.grouptabs.net/tab%2F"+extractedValue+"/_all_docs?include_docs=true"
    var csv_file = extractedValue +".csv"
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open("GET",db_path, true);
    xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {
        if (xhr.readyState === 4 && xhr.status === 200) {
            var jsonResponse = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText);
            var csvData = jsonToCsv(jsonResponse.rows);
            download(csvData,csv_file, "text/csv");
        }
    };
    xhr.send();
}

Grouptabs has two types of documents defined by an attribute type; it can have two values: info or transaction. We are interested in transaction types of documents. Then, we convert the participants into rows (see getParticipantsData function) and create a CSV.

function getParticipantColumns(rows) {
    const participantColumns = new Set();
    rows.forEach(row => {
        row.doc.participants.forEach(p => participantColumns.add(p.participant));
    });
    return Array.from(participantColumns);
}

  function getParticipantsData(participants, participantColumns) {
    const participantData = {};
    participantColumns.forEach(col => {
        participantData[col] = 0; // Initialize all columns with 0
    });
    participants.forEach(p => {
        if (participantData.hasOwnProperty(p.participant)) {
            participantData[p.participant] = p.amount;
        }
    });
    return participantColumns.map(col => participantData[col]);
}

function jsonToCsv(rows) {
      // Filter only "transaction" objects
      rows = rows.filter(row => row.doc.type === "transaction");

      // Extract columns from the first row
      const columns = ["_id", "type", "timestamp", "transactionType", "description", "date"];
      const csvRows = [];

      const participantColumns = getParticipantColumns(rows);

      // Add header
      columns.push(...participantColumns);
      csvRows.push(columns.join(","));

      // Add rows
      rows.forEach(row => {
          const doc = row.doc;
          const participantsData = getParticipantsData(doc.participants, participantColumns);
          const values = [
              doc._id,
              doc.type,
              doc.timestamp,
              doc.transactionType,
              doc.description,
              doc.date,
              ...participantsData
          ];
          csvRows.push(values.join(","));
      });

      return csvRows.join("\n");
}

Then, we form a blob and download it.

function download(data, filename, type) {
    var file = new Blob([data], { type: type });
    var a = document.createElement("a"),
        url = URL.createObjectURL(file);
    a.href = url;
    a.download = filename;
    document.body.appendChild(a);
    a.click();
    setTimeout(function() {
        document.body.removeChild(a);
        window.URL.revokeObjectURL(url);
    }, 0);
}

All of this is enabled only for the Grouptabs URL using Greasemonkey @match. And that's it. Our user script is ready to be used. You can import from here and use it.


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1 Response

  1. July 5, 2024

    […] I wrote a blog post about the bill-splitting apps I have used. I also released a userscript to add Download/Export as a CSV feature to Grouptabs. […]

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