CodexBloom - Programming Q&A Platform

advanced patterns with ActiveRecord's touch method in Rails 7 when using soft deletes

πŸ‘€ Views: 1424 πŸ’¬ Answers: 1 πŸ“… Created: 2025-06-06
ruby rails activerecord soft-delete Ruby

I keep running into I'm trying to configure I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. I am working with an scenario when trying to update the updated_at timestamp of a soft-deleted record using the `touch` method in Rails 7. My application uses the `paranoia` gem for soft deleting records, and it seems like the `touch` method does not work as I expected. I have a model `Post` that looks like this: ```ruby class Post < ApplicationRecord acts_as_paranoid end ``` I tried calling `post.touch` on a soft-deleted post, but the `updated_at` timestamp does not change, and no errors are thrown. Instead, it just silently fails. Here’s how I’m calling the method: ```ruby post = Post.only_deleted.find(post_id) post.touch ``` I expected the `updated_at` field to update, but after executing that line, it remains the same. I also checked the database, and it looks like the record is still soft-deleted as intended. I’ve tried debugging by adding a manual update: ```ruby post.update(updated_at: Time.current) ``` This works fine and updates the timestamp, but I would prefer to use `touch` for clarity and conciseness. Additionally, I looked into the documentation for the `paranoia` gem and found no mention of this limitation. Is there a workaround to make `touch` update the timestamps on soft-deleted records, or is this behavior by design? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm working on a application that needs to handle this. Thanks in advance! This is happening in both development and production on Windows 10. Any pointers in the right direction? Thanks for your help in advance! For context: I'm using Ruby on CentOS. What's the correct way to implement this? For reference, this is a production microservice.