Never Wastes

Never Wastes adds soft delete to ActiveRecord.

It's similar to acts_as_paranoid but simpler.

Bundler

gem 'never_wastes'

Usage

Migrations

First, add deleted column in your models.

class AddDeletedToYourModels < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :your_models, :deleted, :boolean, :null => false, :default => false
  end
end

Currently the boolean "deleted" column is required.

If you need a timestamp, you can also add deleted_at column.

class AddDeletedToYourModels < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :your_models, :deleted, :boolean, :null => false, :default => false
    add_column :your_models, :deleted_at, :datetime
  end
end

If you need to have unique index for that table, waste_id will help.

class AddDeletedToYourModels < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :your_models, :deleted, :boolean, :null => false, :default => false
    add_column :your_models, :deleted_at, :datetime
    add_column :your_models, :waste_id, :integer, :null => false, :default => 0
  end
end

The waste_id supposed to be 0 when it's not deleted. When the record is softly deleted, its primary key is copied to waste_id to be unique in all deleted records. This helps you add unique index for some typical column like 'name' as the following example;

class AddNameIndexToYourModels < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    add_index :your_models, [:name, :waste_id], :unique => true
  end

  # down is needed
end

Declaration

Next step is to specify never_wastes in your model which needs soft delete.

class YourModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  never_wastes
end

Use APIs

Then you can use destroy for soft delete.

model.destroy

If you want hard delete, use demolish.

model.demolish

Using Rails 4.0 or later, you can use #demolish! instead of #destroy!.

You can get non-deleted models by default.

models = YourModel.all # deleted models are not included

This gem also changes .delete_all to soft deletion. You can use .demolish_all as the original .delete_all.

If you need to get models with deleted ones, you can use with_deleted.

models = YourModel.with_deleted.all

In your destroy callbacks, you can use destroying_softly? to check if you are in soft delete or hard delete.

after_destroy :delete_files
private
def delete_files
  return if destroying_softly?
  # delete files associated with the model object
end

Use never_wastes? to check if a model supports soft delete or not.

YourModel.never_wastes?

never_wastes