Question

I am looking for the best approach to delete records from a table. For instance, I have a user whose user ID is across many tables. I want to delete this user and every record that has his ID in all tables.

u = User.find_by_name('JohnBoy')
u.usage_indexes.destroy_all
u.sources.destroy_all
u.user_stats.destroy_all
u.delete

This works and removes all references of the user from all tables, but I heard that destroy_all was very process heavy, so I tried delete_all. It only removes the user from his own user table and the id from all the other tables are made null, but leaves the records intact in them. Can someone share what the correct process is for performing a task like this?

I see that destroy_all calls the destroy function on all associated objects but I just want to confirm the correct approach.

Answer 1

You are right. If you want to delete the User and all associated objects -> destroy_all
However, if you just want to delete the User without suppressing all associated objects -> delete_all

According to this post : Rails :dependent => :destroy VS :dependent => :delete_all

• destroy / destroy_all: The associated objects are destroyed alongside this object by calling their destroy method
• delete / delete_all: All associated objects are destroyed immediately without calling their :destroy method