Google Script App Delete Duplicate Rows with a Specific Value in Specific Column in Google Sheet - if-statement

Question

I have a google sheet where people submit tasks they are working on and they'll submit a status update which is either 'in progress' or 'complete' for let's say task A. Task A is in column D[4] and Status is in column E[5]. I'm trying to get this code to only delete the 'in progress' row for Task A when there is duplicate Task A with the status being 'Complete'. This works for identifying the duplicate and removes the duplicate rows in order, but I'm not sure how to get it to only delete duplicate 'Task A' 'In Progress' rows when there is a 'Task A' 'Complete' row. Any help would be much appreciated!
function removeDuplicates() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Sheet2");
var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
var newData = [];
for (i in data) {
var row = data[i];
var duplicate = false;
for (j in newData) {
if(row[3] == newData[j][3]){
duplicate = true;
}
}
if (!duplicate) {
newData.push(row);
}
}
sheet.clearContents();
sheet.getRange(1, 1, newData.length, newData[0].length).setValues(newData);
}

Answer 1

I would try
function removeDuplicates()
{
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("test");
var dataRange = sheet.getDataRange();
var data = dataRange.getValues();
var indexOfStatusColumn = 4;
var newData = [];
data.forEach(function (row, rowI){
var isDuplicate = false
if (newData.length)
newData.forEach(function (dup, dupI)
{
if (dup[3] == row[3])
{
if (row[indexOfStatusColumn] == "Complete" && dup[indexOfStatusColumn] != "Complete")
newData[dupI][indexOfStatusColumn] = "Complete";
isDuplicate = true;
return (false);
}
})
if (!isDuplicate)
newData.push(row);
});
dataRange = sheet.getRange(2, 1, dataRange.getLastRow() - 1, dataRange.getLastColumn());
dataRange.clearContent();
sheet.getRange(1, 1, newData.length, newData[0].length).setValues(newData);
}
few things
I use forEach()loop it's more efficient
break loop by returning falseto avoid parsing trough all your newDatauselessly
when I find a duplicate I perform some of this actions
Check if duplicate is Complete on data and not on newData if so
change the value in newDatato "Complete" this way it will keep the complete status (be careful if there's different datas on both rows it will probably twist datas).
also use clearContent() from a range to avoid removing all the content of the sheet but only a specific portion of it. Here I've rebuilded it to keep the header
REFERENCES
forEach()
Tanaike benchmark
clearContent()