Share code among different script blocks

[Stefan_Kunz]

Dear Airtable scripting community,

is it possible to share commonly used functions between different blocks of the same database? Currently I use different script blocks for different purposes and would like to avoid duplicating code between them. Is there a way to achieve that?

Thanks, Stefan

[Bill_French]

Stefan_Kunz:

share commonly used functions between different blocks of the same database?

For Script Blocks, not by design. There is no include capability that I’m aware of. I have found a way to place script functions into an Airtable table (think function library as a collection of records) and call those functions using eval(). You can see an example of this approach here.

For Custom Blocks, yes. It’s a fully-capable React environment.

[Stefan_Kunz]

Thanks a lot for the feedback @Bill.French. I like your creative approach, even though an include capability would have been more convenient :slightly_smiling_face:

[kuovonne]

I minified my personal library of helper functions so that it is easy to copy and paste into new scripts. It takes up very few lines in the editor, and if I need to lookup something I refer back to the file with the pre-minified version.

I still have duplicate code in different scripts, but it makes things manageable.

[Stefan_Kunz]

Thanks @kuovonne for this idea! It does not solve the code duplication issue but it definitely helps to have a clearer arrangement of your code so it’s more manageable.

[Bill_French]

kuovonne:

I minified my personal library

And this will become more prevalent as our tools near the imposed ceiling for script block size.

[kuovonne]

Bill.French:

the imposed ceiling for script block size

Do you know that ceiling might be?

[Bill_French]

kuovonne:

Do you know that ceiling might be?

I do not know the specific value, but it’s definitely there. I have an ElasticSearch-like indexing library and I had to minify it to get it to run in a script block. Without minification, the script block wouldn’t save complaining that the script was too large.

[openside]

Hi @Stefan_Kunz - we are working on something to solve this issue. DM me for details if interested. Will be able to share in the coming weeks.

[Stefan_Kunz]

Thanks @openside - I just sent you a DM.