Difference between restrict_with_exception and restrict_with_error

restrict_with_exception

If there are any associated records, an exception will be raised with:

class Student< ActiveRecord::Base  has_many :courses, dependent: :restrict_with_exception  has_many :booksend

restrict_with_error

If there are any associated records, an error will be added to the owner (the record you are trying to delete) with:

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base  has_many :bars, dependent: :restrict_with_errorend

Expected behavior

For standard validations the error messages contain the translations and the error details contain the keys, as here with a blank error:

f1 = Foo.newf1.save!#=> ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid: Validation failed: Name can't be blankf1.errors#=> #<ActiveModel::Errors:0x007fb666637af8#=> @base=#<Foo:0x007fb6666ddbb0 id: nil, name: nil>,#=> @details={:name=>[{:error=>:blank}], :type=>[{:error=>:blank}]},#=> @messages={:name=>["can't be blank"], :type=>["can't be blank"]}>

Those are dependent option

What is the dependent option?

The dependent option is an option to decide what to do with child records when deleting a parent record if the model that is Rails has a child record.

restrict_with_exception

:restrict_with_exception – if there are any associated records, an exception will be raised.

:restrict_with_exception - if there are child records, then you ActiveRecord::DeleteRestrictionError will encounter.

restrict_with_error

:restrict_with_error – if there are any associated records, an error will be added to the owner (the record you are trying to delete).

:restrict_with_error - if there is a child record, it can not be deleted, and error information is added to the parent record.

Several Options except those

:destroy - Delete child records with parents.

:delete_all - Delete child records with parents. However, since the record of the DB is deleted directly, the callback processing of the child record is not executed.

:nullify NULL - Update the foreign key of the child record.

You can also google for more

From fool-dev's answer

You can also google for more

No need to do so. From the Active Record source code:

def self.valid_dependent_options  [:destroy, :delete_all, :nullify, :restrict_with_error, :restrict_with_exception, :destroy_async]end

So, the list is almost complete, there would only be :destroy_async left to google. Here's what it does, from the docs:

If set to :destroy_async, the associated object is scheduled to be destroyed in a background job.