A Rails plugin to add soft delte.
This gem can be used to hide records instead of deleting them, making them recoverable later.
This branch targets Rails 3.2+.
If you're working with another version, switch to the corresponding branch, or require an older version of the acts_as_paranoid gem.
You can enable ActsAsParanoid like this:
class Paranoiac < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid
end
You can also specify the name of the column to store it's deletion and the type of data it holds:
:column => 'deleted_at'
:column_type => 'time'
The values shown are the defaults. While column can be anything (as long as it exists in your database), type is restricted to:
boolean
time
orstring
If your column type is a string
, you can also specify which value to use when marking an object as deleted by passing :deleted_value
(default is "deleted"). Any records with a non-matching value in this column will be treated normally (ie: not deleted).
If a record is deleted by ActsAsParanoid, it won't be retrieved when accessing the database. So, Paranoiac.all
will not include the deleted_records. if you want to access them, you have 2 choices:
Paranoiac.only_deleted # retrieves the deleted records
Paranoiac.with_deleted # retrieves all records, deleted or not
When using the default column_type
of 'time'
, the following extra scopes are provided:
time = Time.now
Paranoiac.deleted_after_time(time)
Paranoiac.deleted_before_time(time)
# Or roll it all up and get a nice window:
Paranoiac.deleted_inside_time_window(time, 2.minutes)
In order to really delete a record, just use:
paranoiac.destroy!
Paranoiac.delete_all!(conditions)
You can also permanently delete a record by calling destroy
or delete_all
on it twice. If a record was already deleted (hidden by ActsAsParanoid) and you delete it again, it will be removed from the database. Take this example:
p = Paranoiac.first
p.destroy # does NOT delete the first record, just hides it
Paranoiac.only_deleted.where(:id => p.id).destroy # deletes the first record from the database
Recovery is easy. Just invoke recover
on it, like this:
Paranoiac.only_deleted.where("name = ?", "not dead yet").first.recover
All associations marked as :dependent => :destroy
are also recursively recovered. If you would like to disable this behavior, you can call recover
with the recursive
option:
Paranoiac.only_deleted.where("name = ?", "not dead yet").first.recover(:recursive => false)
If you would like to change this default behavior for one model, you can use the recover_dependent_associations
option
class Paranoiac < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid :recover_dependent_associations => false
end
By default, dependent records will be recovered if they were deleted within 2 minutes of the object upon which they depend. This restores the objects to the state before the recursive deletion without restoring other objects that were deleted earlier. The behavior is only available when both parent and dependant are using timestamp fields to mark deletion, which is the default behavior. This window can be changed with the dependent_recovery_window
option:
class Paranoiac < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid
has_many :paranoids, :dependent => :destroy
end
class Paranoid < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :paranoic
# Paranoid objects will be recovered alongside Paranoic objects
# if they were deleted within 10 minutes of the Paranoic object
acts_as_paranoid :dependent_recovery_window => 10.minutes
end
or in the recover statement
Paranoiac.only_deleted.where("name = ?", "not dead yet").first.recover(:recovery_window => 30.seconds)
ActiveRecord's built-in uniqueness validation does not account for records deleted by ActsAsParanoid. If you want to check for uniqueness among non-deleted records only, use the macro validates_as_paranoid
in your model. Then, instead of using validates_uniqueness_of
, use validates_uniqueness_of_without_deleted
. This will keep deleted records from counting against the uniqueness check.
class Paranoiac < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid
validates_as_paranoid
validates_uniqueness_of_without_deleted :name
end
p1 = Paranoiac.create(:name => 'foo')
p1.destroy
p2 = Paranoiac.new(:name => 'foo')
p2.valid? #=> true
p2.save
p1.recover #=> fails validation!
You can check the status of your paranoid objects with the deleted?
helper
Paranoiac.create(:name => 'foo').destroy
Paranoiac.with_deleted.first.deleted? #=> true
As you've probably guessed, with_deleted
and only_deleted
are scopes. You can, however, chain them freely with other scopes you might have. This
Paranoiac.pretty.with_deleted
is exactly the same as
Paranoiac.with_deleted.pretty
You can work freely with scopes and it will just work:
class Paranoiac < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid
scope :pretty, where(:pretty => true)
end
Paranoiac.create(:pretty => true)
Paranoiac.pretty.count #=> 1
Paranoiac.only_deleted.count #=> 0
Paranoiac.pretty.only_deleted.count #=> 0
Paranoiac.first.destroy
Paranoiac.pretty.count #=> 0
Paranoiac.only_deleted.count #=> 1
Paranoiac.pretty.only_deleted.count #=> 1
Associations are also supported. From the simplest behaviors you'd expect to more nifty things like the ones mentioned previously or the usage of the :with_deleted
option with belongs_to
class Parent < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :children, :class_name => "ParanoiacChild"
end
class ParanoiacChild < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_paranoid
belongs_to :parent
# You may need to provide a foreign_key like this
belongs_to :parent_including_deleted, :class_name => "Parent", foreign_key => 'parent_id', :with_deleted => true
end
parent = Parent.first
child = parent.children.create
parent.destroy
child.parent #=> nil
child.parent_including_deleted #=> Parent (it works!)
Watch out for these caveats:
- You cannot use scopes named
with_deleted
andonly_deleted
- You cannot use scopes named
deleted_inside_time_window
,deleted_before_time
,deleted_after_time
if your paranoid column's type istime
- You cannot name association
*_with_deleted
unscoped
will return all records, deleted or not
- To cheerfulstoic for adding recursive recovery
- To Jonathan Vaught for adding paranoid validations
- To Geoffrey Hichborn for improving the overral code quality and adding support for after_commit
- To flah00 for adding support for STI-based associations (with :dependent)
- To vikramdhillon for the idea and initial implementation of support for string column type
- To Craig Walker for Rails 3.1 support and fixing various pending issues
- To Charles G. for Rails 3.2 support and for making a desperately needed global code refactoring
- To Gonçalo Silva for supporting this gem prior to v0.4.3
See LICENSE
.