Rails - Soft Delete or Archive for active and non active data

Question

I have read a lot about soft deletes and archive and saw all the pros and cons. I'm still confused on which approach would work best for my situation. I'll use the concept of posts and comments to see if I can explain it a bit easier

Post -> Comments
Post.all

Outside RSS Feeds -> Post -> Comments
RSSFeed.posts (Return the ones that are deleted or not)

Post gets "deleted" but I need the posts still accessible from say an RSS Feed but not the admin of the application.

I hear a lot of headaches with soft deletes but think it might make the most sense for my application and feel if I use Archive then I would have to run multiple queries

RSSFeed.posts || RSSFeed.archived_posts  

not sure which would be more efficient or more a pain in the @$$. Thoughts or examples? I know this example sounds stupid but trying to think of multiple situations that could be used to figure out which way to go.

Answer 1

Just add another column in your database and call it archivated.

Use link_to_if for the links:

<%= link_to_unless @post.archivated?, @post.name, post_path(@path) %>

Some more rails goodness:

app/models/post.rb

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  default_scope where( active: true )

  def archivate
    unless self.archivated?
      self.archivated = true
      self.save
    end
  end

  def dectivate
    if self.archivated?
      self.archivated = false
      self.save
    end
  end
end

app/models/archive.rb

class Archive < Post
  set_table_name :posts # make this model use the posts table

  default_scope where( active: false )
end

Now you can do stuff like this:

@post = Post.find(some_id)
@post.archivate
Archive.find(some_id) # should return the post you just archivated

Answer 2

Definitely you will get idea , take a look :

http://railspikes.com/2010/2/26/acts-as-archive