This is a soft delete mixin for ActiveRecord 3.x. All you need to do is add a `deleted_at` column to the ActiveRecord models you mix this into.

soft_delete.rb

module SoftDelete
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern
  
  included do
    define_model_callbacks :soft_delete
    define_model_callbacks :recover
    default_scope where(:deleted_at => nil)
    class_eval do
      class << self
        alias_method :with_deleted, :unscoped
      end
    end
  end
  
  module ClassMethods
    def only_deleted
      unscoped.where("#{table_name}.deleted_at IS NOT NULL")
    end
  end
  
  def soft_delete
    run_callbacks :soft_delete do
      update_attribute(:deleted_at, Time.current)
    end
  end
  
  def recover
    run_callbacks :recover do
      update_attribute(:deleted_at, nil)
    end
  end
end

Brian, This is an awesome way to do Soft Deletes and was about to implement it but wasn't sure what the define_model_callbacks was actually doing in this example?

It's adding all the standard callback functionality so that the run_callbacks calls inside of soft_delete and recover function properly. It allows you to define callbacks for those lifecycle events the same way you do for destroy and save and create and validate.

Brian, Thank you! I actually was just reading about this when you commented. I finally found some great articles on this and never really thought to include stuff like that...Great job..this is super awesome! Thanks for responding too.