Question

I’ve always had a weird feeling in my gut about actually deleting rows from certain types of tables.

For example, if I have a table of Users…when they delete their account, rather than fully deleting their row, I have been marking as “dead” or inactive. This allows me to retain a record of their existence if I ever need it again.

In situations like this – considering performance, overhead, etc – should I delete the row, or simply mark as inactive?

Which is more “common”?

Answer 1

Personally, I almost always use “soft deletes” as you describe.

If space is a concern, I’ll have a job that will periodically clean up the soft-deleted records after they’ve been deleted for a certain amount of time.