RESTful route for deleting all records in Rails

Question

I have seen this question, but the only answer there suggests creating a custom route, which I am reluctant to do. What are the alternatives, using Rails' default RESTful routes?

In particular, I've begun using this setup:

# routes.rb

# Note the singular resource
resource :all_apples, path: 'apples/all', only: :destroy

# all_apples_controller.rb

class AllApplesController
  def destroy
    # Something like:
    User.find(params[:id]).apples.delete_all
  end
end

Then I can do DELETE /apples/all to delete all apple records. I would also have a separate ApplesController with the standard individual CRUD actions, so I can still do, for example, GET /apples.

Would this be a "RESTful" way to solve the problem? Are there any notable issues with it?

Note

My actual use case has to do with token revocation. I want an endpoint that revokes all of a user's web tokens. I'm currently using DELETE /users/:id/tokens/all, as described above.

Answer 1

I have been thinking about this. I really don't like to do anything like this on a controller.

1. I would create a special nested route for users

# config/routes.rb
resources :users do
  delete '/delete_all_apples', to: 'users#delete_all_apples'
end

So now we have a special route to delete all apples from users

on the console you can find this routes like this

rails routes | grep delete_all_apples
# user_delete_all_apples DELETE     /users/:user_id/delete_all_apples(.:format)                                                       users#delete_all_apples

2. On your view your link should be

<%= link_to 'Destroy All Apples', user_delete_all_apples_path(user.id), data: {:confirm => 'Are you sure?'}, :method => :delete %>

3. Your Controller

class UsersController  < ApplicationController
  def delete_all_apples
    User.find(params[:id]).delete_all_apples
  end
end

4. On your Model

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :apples

  def delete_all_apples
    apples.delete_all
  end

end