Is there a Rails 4 circular dependent: :destroy workaround?

Question

As an example for the circular dependent: :destroy issue:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one: :staff, dependent: :destroy
end

class Staff         


        

Answer 1

If one side of the cycle only has that one callback, you can replace one of the dependent: :destroy with dependent: :delete

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  # delete prevents Staff's :destroy callback from happening
  has_one: :staff, dependent: :delete
  has_many :other_things, dependent: :destroy
end

class Staff < ActiveRecord::Base
  # use :destroy here so that other_things are properly removed
  belongs_to :user, dependent: :destroy
end

Worked great for me, as long as one side doesn't need other callbacks to fire.