# Adding automatic conditions to find method

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-automatic-conditions-to-find-method/164043>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 27, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-automatic-conditions-to-find-method/164043 "2009-03-27T07:20:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tkbeili)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-automatic-conditions-to-find-method/164043/1 "2009-03-27T07:20:20Z")

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Hello,

Is there a way to add automatic condition to all active record find  
methods?

I have an attribute in all my tables something like “effective\_end\_date”  
so that I don’t delete records but I keep them by setting  
effective\_end\_date so I want to put condition is all my find queries  
effective\_end\_date Is null or effective\_end\_date \> Time.now. I don’t  
want to type this for every single query so I was wondering if it’s  
possible to automate it.

Thanks,

Tam

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tkbeili)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-automatic-conditions-to-find-method/164043/2 "2009-03-27T07:53:14Z")

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On 27 Mar., 07:20, Tam K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> possible to automate it.  
> Yes, you can use default\_scope:  
> [ActiveRecord::Base](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html#M002258)  
> It supports the same options as the find methods.

–  
Best regards,  
David K.  
[http://twitter.com/rubyguy](http://twitter.com/rubyguy)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tkbeili](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tkbeili)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/adding-automatic-conditions-to-find-method/164043/3 "2009-03-28T16:22:16Z")

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Thanks David…this is defenitaly the best solution but I realised that  
it needs rails 2.3.2 which I’m currently not using! I will try to  
upgrade but I’m worried I have to change lots of things. Do you know a  
way to do it in previous versions of rails?  
Thanks,  
Tam