Paranoia

Paranoia is a re-implementation of acts_as_paranoid for Rails 3/4/5, using much, much, much less code.

When your app is using Paranoia, calling destroy on an ActiveRecord object doesn't actually destroy the database record, but just hides it. Paranoia does this by setting a deleted_at field to the current time when you destroy a record, and hides it by scoping all queries on your model to only include records which do not have a deleted_at field.

If you wish to actually destroy an object you may call really_destroy!. WARNING: This will also really destroy all dependent: :destroy records, so please aim this method away from face when using.

If a record has has_many associations defined AND those associations have dependent: :destroy set on them, then they will also be soft-deleted if acts_as_paranoid is set, otherwise the normal destroy will be called. See Destroying through association callbacks for clarifying examples.

Getting Started Video

Setup and basic usage of the paranoia gem GoRails #41

Installation & Usage

For Rails 3, please use version 1 of Paranoia:

gem "paranoia", "~> 1.0"

For Rails 4 and 5, please use version 2 of Paranoia (2.2 or greater required for rails 5):

gem "paranoia", "~> 2.2"

Of course you can install this from GitHub as well from one of these examples:

gem "paranoia", github: "rubysherpas/paranoia", branch: "rails3"
gem "paranoia", github: "rubysherpas/paranoia", branch: "rails4"
gem "paranoia", github: "rubysherpas/paranoia", branch: "rails5"

Then run:

bundle install

Updating is as simple as bundle update paranoia.

Run your migrations for the desired models

Run:

bin/rails generate migration AddDeletedAtToClients deleted_at:datetime:index

and now you have a migration

class AddDeletedAtToClients < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :clients, :deleted_at, :datetime
    add_index :clients, :deleted_at
  end
end

Usage

In your model:

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid

  # ...
end

Hey presto, it's there! Calling destroy will now set the deleted_at column:

>> client.deleted_at
# => nil
>> client.destroy
# => client
>> client.deleted_at
# => [current timestamp]

If you really want it gone gone, call really_destroy!:

>> client.deleted_at
# => nil
>> client.really_destroy!
# => client

If you want to use a column other than deleted_at, you can pass it as an option:

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid column: :destroyed_at

  ...
end

If you want to skip adding the default scope:

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid without_default_scope: true

  ...
end

If you want to access soft-deleted associations, override the getter method:

def product
  Product.unscoped { super }
end

If you want to include associated soft-deleted objects, you can (un)scope the association:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :group, -> { with_deleted }
end

Person.includes(:group).all

If you want to find all records, even those which are deleted:

Client.with_deleted

If you want to exclude deleted records, when not able to use the default_scope (e.g. when using without_default_scope):

Client.without_deleted

If you want to find only the deleted records:

Client.only_deleted

If you want to check if a record is soft-deleted:

client.paranoia_destroyed?
# or
client.deleted?

If you want to restore a record:

Client.restore(id)
# or
client.restore

If you want to restore a whole bunch of records:

Client.restore([id1, id2, ..., idN])

If you want to restore a record and their dependently destroyed associated records:

Client.restore(id, :recursive => true)
# or
client.restore(:recursive => true)

If you want to restore a record and only those dependently destroyed associated records that were deleted within 2 minutes of the object upon which they depend:

Client.restore(id, :recursive => true. :recovery_window => 2.minutes)
# or
client.restore(:recursive => true, :recovery_window => 2.minutes)

Note that by default paranoia will not prevent that a soft destroyed object can't be associated with another object of a different model. A Rails validator is provided should you require this functionality:

validates :some_assocation, association_not_soft_destroyed: true

This validator makes sure that some_assocation is not soft destroyed. If the object is soft destroyed the main object is rendered invalid and an validation error is added.

For more information, please look at the tests.

About indexes:

Beware that you should adapt all your indexes for them to work as fast as previously. For example,

add_index :clients, :group_id
add_index :clients, [:group_id, :other_id]

should be replaced with

add_index :clients, :group_id, where: "deleted_at IS NULL"
add_index :clients, [:group_id, :other_id], where: "deleted_at IS NULL"

Of course, this is not necessary for the indexes you always use in association with with_deleted or only_deleted.

Unique Indexes

Because NULL != NULL in standard SQL, we can not simply create a unique index on the deleted_at column and expect it to enforce that there only be one record with a certain combination of values.

If your database supports them, good alternatives include partial indexes (above) and indexes on computed columns. E.g.

add_index :clients, [:group_id, 'COALESCE(deleted_at, false)'], unique: true

If not, an alternative is to create a separate column which is maintained alongside deleted_at for the sake of enforcing uniqueness. To that end, paranoia makes use of two method to make its destroy and restore actions: paranoia_restore_attributes and paranoia_destroy_attributes.

add_column :clients, :active, :boolean
add_index :clients, [:group_id, :active], unique: true

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  # optionally have paranoia make use of your unique column, so that
  # your lookups will benefit from the unique index
  acts_as_paranoid column: :active, sentinel_value: true

  def paranoia_restore_attributes
    {
      deleted_at: nil,
      active: true
    }
  end

  def paranoia_destroy_attributes
    {
      deleted_at: current_time_from_proper_timezone,
      active: nil
    }
  end
end

Destroying through association callbacks

When dealing with dependent: :destroy associations and acts_as_paranoid, it's important to remember that whatever method is called on the parent model will be called on the child model. For example, given both models of an association have acts_as_paranoid defined:

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid

  has_many :emails, dependent: :destroy
end

class Email < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid

  belongs_to :client
end

When we call destroy on the parent client, it will call destroy on all of its associated children emails:

>> client.emails.count
# => 5
>> client.destroy
# => client
>> client.deleted_at
# => [current timestamp]
>> Email.where(client_id: client.id).count
# => 0
>> Email.with_deleted.where(client_id: client.id).count
# => 5

Similarly, when we call really_destroy! on the parent client, then each child email will also have really_destroy! called:

>> client.emails.count
# => 5
>> client.id
# => 12345
>> client.really_destroy!
# => client
>> Client.find 12345
# => ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound
>> Email.with_deleted.where(client_id: client.id).count
# => 0

However, if the child model Email does not have acts_as_paranoid set, then calling destroy on the parent client will also call destroy on each child email, thereby actually destroying them:

class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid

  has_many :emails, dependent: :destroy
end

class Email < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :client
end

>> client.emails.count
# => 5
>> client.destroy
# => client
>> Email.where(client_id: client.id).count
# => 0
>> Email.with_deleted.where(client_id: client.id).count
# => NoMethodError: undefined method `with_deleted' for #<Class:0x0123456>

Acts As Paranoid Migration

You can replace the older acts_as_paranoid methods as follows:

Old Syntax	New Syntax
find_with_deleted(:all)	Client.with_deleted
find_with_deleted(:first)	Client.with_deleted.first
find_with_deleted(id)	Client.with_deleted.find(id)

The recover method in acts_as_paranoid runs update callbacks. Paranoia's restore method does not do this.

Callbacks

Paranoia provides several callbacks. It triggers destroy callback when the record is marked as deleted and real_destroy when the record is completely removed from database. It also calls restore callback when the record is restored via paranoia

For example if you want to index your records in some search engine you can go like this:

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_paranoid

  after_destroy      :update_document_in_search_engine
  after_restore      :update_document_in_search_engine
  after_real_destroy :remove_document_from_search_engine
end

You can use these events just like regular Rails callbacks with before, after and around hooks.

License

This gem is released under the MIT license.