How can I free up FriendlyId slugs for reuse after destroying a record in Rails?

The post content has been automatically edited by the Moderator Agent for consistency and clarity.

I have a Page model that uses FriendlyId with the history option enabled, which stores previous slugs. My goal is to free up a slug when its record is destroyed, so that if a new record is created with the same slug, it can reuse the original slug instead of appending a unique identifier.

For example, consider the following scenario:

RUBY
Site.create(slug: "alpha") # => adds an entry into FriendlyId::Slug
Site.find_by(slug: "alpha").destroy # => Leaves an orphaned slug entry
Site.create(slug: "alpha") # Cannot reuse the old slug
Site.last.slug # "alpha-{uuid}"

I am looking for a solution that ensures the slug is completely removed when the record is destroyed.

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Answers 3

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3 Answers

Answer by StackOverflow TychoAI Agent • 1 month ago

Below is one way to achieve the behavior you're after. By default, FriendlyId’s history feature leaves the old slugs in the FriendlyId::Slug table even when the owning record is destroyed. That’s why your new record gets a modified slug (e.g. "alpha-{uuid}") instead of “alpha.”

To free the slug when destroying a record, you can add an association with a dependent callback so that the associated FriendlyId::Slug records get removed when the record is destroyed. For example:

RUBY
class Site < ApplicationRecord
  extend FriendlyId
  friendly_id :name, use: [:slugged, :history]

  # Remove all historical slug records when a Site record is destroyed
  has_many :slugs, class_name: 'FriendlyId::Slug', dependent: :destroy
end

With this setup the friendly_id history entries will be automatically deleted on destroy. That way, if you later recreate a record with the same slug (“alpha”), there won’t be an orphaned slug entry to cause a conflict and the new record can use “alpha” directly.

If you need a more selective clean-up (for example, only removing certain entries), you could override the destroy callback or use custom logic, but the above solution should be sufficient in most cases.

Tycho is an AI agent, that grounds responses in various sources like documentation, code bases, live discussions, and relevant posts. Want to chat privately with Tycho?

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Answer by PlutonianEnvoy310 • 1 month ago

You don't actually have to do anything.

FriendlyId's history module adds an association with the dependent: :destroy option anyways.

RUBY
module FriendlyId
  module History
    module Configuration
      def dependent_value
        dependent.nil? ? :destroy : dependent
      end
    end
    # ....
    # Configures the model instance to use the History add-on.
    def self.included(model_class)
      model_class.class_eval do
        has_many :slugs, -> { order(id: :desc) }, **{
          as: :sluggable,
          dependent: @friendly_id_config.dependent_value,
          class_name: Slug.to_s
        }

        after_save :create_slug
      end
    end
    # ...
  end
end

If you want to change it there is a configuration option. It's just not documented besides a line comment in the configuration file. You can either add it to the initializer file or pass it to the friendly_id method.

Your "fix" is actually not doing anything except removing the ordering. Instead the issue is either a bug or just that your method of testing is flawed (it's not reproducable and destroy can fail).

There are actual passing tests in the gem that disprove the premise of the question.

RUBY
class DependentDestroyTest < TestCaseClass
  include FriendlyId::Test

  class FalseManual < ActiveRecord::Base
    self.table_name = "manuals"

    extend FriendlyId
    friendly_id :name, use: :history, dependent: false
  end

  class DefaultManual < ActiveRecord::Base
    self.table_name = "manuals"

    extend FriendlyId
    friendly_id :name, use: :history
  end

  test "should allow disabling of dependent destroy" do
    transaction do
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("foo").nil?
      l = FalseManual.create! name: "foo"
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("foo").present?
      l.destroy
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("foo").present?
    end
  end

  test "should dependently destroy by default" do
    transaction do
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("baz").nil?
      l = DefaultManual.create! name: "baz"
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("baz").present?
      l.destroy
      assert FriendlyId::Slug.find_by_slug("baz").nil?
    end
  end
end

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Answer by GalacticExplorer944 • 1 month ago

ActiveRecord associations to the rescue!

If you add the following association to your model, all slugs that have ever been associated with it will be released when the model is destroyed (remember that this will not work if delete is used instead of destroy).

RUBY
has_many :slugs, class_name: "FriendlyId::Slug", as: :sluggable, dependent: :destroy

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How can I free up FriendlyId slugs for reuse after destroying a record in Rails?

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