Mark as deleted instead of actually deleting in DeleteView

Question

I am deleting objects in different models with DeleteView in Django.

The problem is that I don't want the objects to be completely deleted but rather just hidden. First I thought that it made sense to keep my views as they are but instead overriding the delete method in each model to do as follows

def delete(self, force=False):
    if force:
        return super(ModelName, self).delete()
    else:
        self.is_deleted = True
        self.save()

but then I noticed that the delete method wont be called in bulk deletion so this method will be too risky.

Can someone recommend a good way to do this? I still want to keep the normal behaviour of DeleteView but it should just 'deactivating' the objects rather than deleting them.

DeleteView is as follows:

def delete(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    """
    Calls the delete() method on the fetched object and then
    redirects to the success URL.
    """
    self.object = self.get_object()
    success_url = self.get_success_url()
    self.object.delete()
    return HttpResponseRedirect(success_url)

Will it be sufficient if I replace self.object.delete() with

self.object.is_deleted = True
self.object.save()

When I have marked my objects as deleted, how can I make sure that my querysets wont contain the deleted objects? I could simply replace get_queryset() in my ListView but they should be left out of any queryset on the page so I wonder if I would get better results if I customize the objects manager instead?

I've been looking at django-reversion. Could I simply just delete all objects in the normal manner and then use django-reversion if I want to restore them? Are there any disadvantages of this solution?

Already asked: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/744084/how-can-i-easily-mark-records-as-deleted-in-django-models-instead-of-actually-de — Glyn Jackson, Feb 15 '15 at 22:19

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

When I have marked my objects as deleted, how can I make sure that my querysets wont contain the deleted objects?

As the comment states, the Django-only solution is writing a customer Manager that understands your is_deleted field.

I've been looking at django-reversion. Could I simply just delete all objects in the normal manner and then use django-reversion if I want to restore them?

Yes, as long as your wrap your deletions in reversions. This can be as simple as using the reversion middleware to wrap all deletes and saves:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'reversion.middleware.RevisionMiddleware',
    # Other middleware goes here...
)

Are there any disadvantages of this solution?

None that I've found, its well supported and apart from just deletion support it also has version tracking.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 16 '15 at 09:27

but then I noticed that the delete method wont be called in bulk deletion so this method will be too risky.

you can write your own QuerySet for that and use it as_manager. Same QuerySet can take care of hiding your deleted fields from displaying. Remember to leave some way for retrieving all of your deleted fields.

Mark as deleted instead of actually deleting in DeleteView

2 Answers2