Get the first free column in a Google Sheet via PHP API - php

Question

I'm using the Google Sheets API to write some data into the sheets, but so far either I clear it all and write everything again or I write in new rows (which Sheets API does by default).
I am now writing a single column per run, but I need to get the first available column in the sheet, so I can pass it as the range of writing.
This is my code so far:
$sheet = new \Google_Service_Sheets($this->client);
$range = "'" . $sheetName . "'!" . $rangeArg . (strlen($rangeArg) == 2 ? '' : count($data) + 1000);
$response = $sheet->spreadsheets_values->get($this->sheetId, $range);
if (!$clear && $response && $response->values) {
$c = count($response->values);
$newRange = (intval(substr($rangeArg, 1, 1)) + $c);
$newRange = substr($rangeArg, 0, 1) . $newRange . substr($rangeArg, 2);
$range = "'" . $sheetName . "'!" . $newRange . (count($data) + 1000);
}
$options = ['valueInputOption' => 'RAW'];
if ($clear) {
$sheet->spreadsheets_values->clear($this->sheetId, $range, new \Google_Service_Sheets_ClearValuesRequest);
}
$body = new \Google_Service_Sheets_ValueRange(['values' => $data, 'majorDimension' => $columns ? 'COLUMNS' : 'ROWS']);
$ok = $sheet->spreadsheets_values->append($this->sheetId, $range, $body, $options);
}
I saw someone on the internet mentioning getLastColumn() as a function, but it's not available in my version of sheets API apparently or it's just not in this package.
google/apiclient v2.5.0
google/apiclient-services v0.138
google/auth v1.9.0

Answer 1

getLastColumn is an appscript method. Something like that is not available with the php client library is only going to give you google sheets api methods,
The only way to find out whats on the sheet is to buffer it and scan though as you are already doing. Unfortunately with PHP there is really no easy way of doing it.
$response = $service->spreadsheets_values->batchGet($spreadsheetId);

Answer 2

I dont use PHP, but I am 100% sure, that in Google API its closest things on PHP and Python, just syntax of languages would be different
So for get the first free column through Google Sheet API (using Python):
import httplib2
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from oauth2client.service_account import ServiceAccountCredentials
DOCUMENT_ID = '1ma8DG3IQJ377900iaFUPu9qXoThuP22buLgEILVfO1M'
def get_service_sacc():
creds_json = 'param-param-1344-fae81984f8a8.json'
scopes = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets']
creds_service = ServiceAccountCredentials.from_json_keyfile_name(creds_json, scopes).authorize(httplib2.Http())
return build('sheets', 'v4', http=creds_service)
sheet_values = get_service_sacc().spreadsheets().values()
_range = "A1:A9"
# or use _range = "Name of List!A1:A9", if u want to take info not from first list of sheets.
write = sheet_values.append(spreadsheetId=DOCUMENT_ID, range=_range, valueInputOption="USER_ENTERED",body={}).execute()
deal_id = str(write['updates']['updatedRange']).split('!')
little info about how get creds.json, if you wanna make thru this method (its from Service Account (https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/service-accounts), create it, go to you Cloud Developer Console, create a some project, create service account, append it to project, and also after creation, click on three dots at actions (in account line), click Manage keys -> Add key -> Create new key -> json and end it, than download that json, and put it together in one directory of you project where u start you language logic.)
info about, how append works (https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/reference/rest/v4/spreadsheets.values/append)