--- title: Using Before Destroy and Has Many in Rails description: A quick tip for utilizing a before_destroy callback in Rails alongside associations. image: https://blog.madebylotus.com/hubfs/active-record-callbacks.jpg --- ![Lotus Apps](https://blog.madebylotus.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Backgrounds_Lotus%20BLog_Jan2017/logo-color.png?width=170&name=logo-color.png "Lotus Apps") - [Work](https://www.madebylotus.com/software-solutions/) - [Why Lotus](https://www.madebylotus.com/custom-software-development/) - [About](https://www.madebylotus.com/about/) - [Blog](https://blog.madebylotus.com/blog) - [Start a Project](https://info.madebylotus.com/start-your-custom-software-solution) # Using Before Destroy and Has Many in Rails # Using Before Destroy and Has Many in Rails Aug 03, 2017 | [By Matt](https://blog.madebylotus.com/blog/author/matt) | [Ruby on Rails](https://blog.madebylotus.com/blog/topic/ruby-on-rails), [Development](https://blog.madebylotus.com/blog/topic/development) A quick tip for utilizing a before\_destroy callback in Rails alongside associations. ## The Problem It's not often we make use of "before\_destroy" callbacks in Rails (in fact, we advocate for service objects); however, we found ourselves wanting to make use of this callback recently to process data in a has many relationship. ### Archive Association on Destroy In the following example, we want to perform some logic on any associated models using an `ActiveJob` worker, as well as ensure that each payment method is updated to remove the reference to this parent model. With this code however, when our callback is executed, `payment_methods` will be empty, as the `dependent: :nullify` has already set the foreign key value to `null` for each.   ### Prepend the Callback As it turns out, the `dependent` option on a `has_many` association is implemented as a callback itself, a `before_destroy` to be exact. So while we could write a custom `before_action` that also handles the nullification of the foreign key, we couldn't easily reuse this existing service. In this scenario, we simply `prepend`our callback so it is executed before foreign key nullification occurs. - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) ### Written by [Matt](https://blog.madebylotus.com/blog/author/matt) Dad, husband, and Founder of Lotus Apps providing Rails and RubyMotion development out of Knoxville TN. 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