delete_all

Deletes the records matching conditions without instantiating the records first, and hence not calling the destroy method nor invoking callbacks. This is a single SQL DELETE statement that goes straight to the database, much more efficient than destroy_all. Be careful with relations though, in particular :dependent rules defined on associations are not honored. Returns the number of rows affected.

Post.delete_all("person_id = 5 AND (category = 'Something' OR category = 'Else')")
Post.delete_all(["person_id = ? AND (category = ? OR category = ?)", 5, 'Something', 'Else'])
Post.where(person_id: 5).where(category: ['Something', 'Else']).delete_all

Both calls delete the affected posts all at once with a single DELETE statement. If you need to destroy dependent associations or call your before_* or after_destroy callbacks, use the destroy_all method instead.

If a limit scope is supplied, delete_all raises an ActiveRecord error:

Post.limit(100).delete_all
# => ActiveRecord::ActiveRecordError: delete_all doesn't support limit scope