How do you delete an ActiveRecord object?

It's destroy and destroy_all methods, like

user.destroy
User.find(15).destroy
User.destroy(15)
User.where(age: 20).destroy_all
User.destroy_all(age: 20)

Alternatively you can use delete and delete_all which won't enforce :before_destroy and :after_destroy callbacks or any dependent association options.

User.delete_all(condition: 'value') will allow you to delete records without a primary key

Note: from @hammady's comment, user.destroy won't work if User model has no primary key.

Note 2: From @pavel-chuchuva's comment, destroy_all with conditions and delete_all with conditions has been deprecated in Rails 5.1 - see guides.rubyonrails.org/5_1_release_notes.html

There is delete, delete_all, destroy, and destroy_all.

The docs are: older docs and Rails 3.0.0 docs

delete doesn't instantiate the objects, while destroy does. In general, delete is faster than destroy.

1. User.destroy

User.destroy(1) will delete user with id == 1 and :before_destroy and :after_destroy callbacks occur. For example if you have associated records

has_many :addresses, :dependent => :destroy

After user is destroyed his addresses will be destroyed too. If you use delete action instead, callbacks will not occur.

2. User.destroy, User.delete

3. User.destroy_all(<conditions>) or User.delete_all(<conditions>)

Notice: User is a class and user is an instance object