Soft-deletable records in Postgres

soft-delete.sql

CREATE FUNCTION soft_delete()
RETURNS trigger AS $$
  BEGIN
    EXECUTE 'UPDATE '
      || TG_TABLE_NAME
      || ' SET deleted_at = current_timestamp WHERE id = $1'
      USING OLD.id;
    RETURN OLD;
  END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql

-- CREATE A TABLE 
CREATE TABLE table_name (
  id integer,
  deleted_at timestamptz
);

-- CREATE A VIEW OF THAT TABLE
CREATE VIEW active_table_name AS
  SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE deleted_at IS NULL;

-- CREATE A TRIGGER TO REPLACE DEFAULT DELETE
CREATE TRIGGER soft_delete_table_name
  INSTEAD OF DELETE ON active_table_name
  FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE soft_delete();
  
-- QUERIES SHOULD NOW BE RUN AGAINST `active_table_name`