Deleting all records in a database table
If you are looking for a way to it without SQL you should be able to use delete_all.
Post.delete_allor with a criteria
Post.delete_all "person_id = 5 AND (category = 'Something' OR category = 'Else')"See here for more information.
The records are deleted without loading them first which makes it very fast but will break functionality like counter cache that depends on rails code to be executed upon deletion.
To delete via SQL
Item.delete_all # accepts optional conditions
To delete by calling each model's destroy method (expensive but ensures callbacks are called)
Item.destroy_all # accepts optional conditions
All here
if you want to completely empty the database and not just delete a model or models attached to it you can do:
rake db:purgeyou can also do it on the test database
rake db:test:purge