# Deleting ALL info for a user in many tables? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 16, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deleting-all-info-for-a-user-in-many-tables/109556 "2007-07-16T20:40:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snantz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deleting-all-info-for-a-user-in-many-tables/109556/1 "2007-07-16T20:40:02Z")
I have this model called “User.” In the user model I have many relations hips such as: ``` has_many :creditcards has_many :airlinememberships ``` and in my airlinemembership model I have belongs\_to :user Now, what I would like to do is to delete not only the user but also the airlinmembership info asssocciated with that user when a delete action occurs. Now, I suppose I could do a find\_by\_id( user.id ) to go through all the tables and destroy all assocciated info, but I’m thinkin that there has to be an easier way in RoR. Plus, there are many many tables that a user may have info in which make the code not ugly but certaintly long. Also, I know about the rails framework API: [http://api.rubyonrails.org/](http://api.rubyonrails.org/), but it seems like this site fails to really explain all the attributes that can be used in a helper method, for example. I was wondering if anyone knows of a better site that explains maybe a little better or might provide some better examples? Thanks all, ~S ---
**Author:** ![snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snantz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deleting-all-info-for-a-user-in-many-tables/109556/2 "2007-07-16T20:48:51Z")
Shandy N. wrote: > I have this model called “User.” In the user model I have many relations > hips such as: > > ``` > has_many :creditcards > has_many :airlinememberships > > ``` > > and in my airlinemembership model I have > > belongs\_to :user > > Now, what I would like to do is to delete not only the user but also the > airlinmembership info asssocciated with that user when a delete action > occurs. Now, I suppose I could do a find\_by\_id( user.id ) to go through > all the tables and destroy all assocciated info, but I’m thinkin that > there has to be an easier way in RoR. Plus, there are many many tables > that a user may have info in which make the code not ugly but certaintly > long. > > Also, I know about the rails framework API: [http://api.rubyonrails.org/](http://api.rubyonrails.org/), > but it seems like this site fails to really explain all the attributes > that can be used in a helper method, for example. I was wondering if > anyone knows of a better site that explains maybe a little better or > might provide some better examples? Thanks all, > > ~S Couldn’t you just use the foreign key and set the option cascade on delete? So that way, any record that has your client\_id would be deleted. I hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snantz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deleting-all-info-for-a-user-in-many-tables/109556/3 "2007-07-16T21:14:59Z")
has\_many :airlinememberships, :dependent =\> :destroy That should do the trick. Look it up for more info. –Tyler P. ---
**Author:** ![snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@snantz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/snantz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deleting-all-info-for-a-user-in-many-tables/109556/4 "2007-07-16T22:28:47Z")
I did the cascade on delete but the :dependent =\> :destroy is what I was looking for. Thanks you guys, either way it works perfectly. ~S