Laravel Soft Delete posts

Updated Version (Version 5.0 & Later):

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

class Post extends Model {

    use SoftDeletes;

    protected $table="posts";

    // ...
}

When soft deleting a model, it is not actually removed from your
database. Instead, a deleted_at timestamp is set on the record. To
enable soft deletes for a model, specify the softDelete property on
the model (Documentation).

For (Version 4.2):

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletingTrait; // <-- This is required

class Post extends Eloquent {

    use SoftDeletingTrait;

    protected $table="posts";

    // ...
}

Prior to Version 4.2 (But not 4.2 & Later)

For example (Using a posts table and Post model):

class Post extends Eloquent {

    protected $table="posts";
    protected $softDelete = true;
    
    // ...
}

To add a deleted_at column to your table, you may use the softDeletes
method from a migration:

For example (Migration class’ up method for posts table) :

/**
 * Run the migrations.
 *
 * @return void
 */
public function up()
{
    Schema::create('posts', function(Blueprint $table)
    {
        $table->increments('id');
        // more fields
        $table->softDeletes(); // <-- This will add a deleted_at field
        $table->timeStamps();
    });
}

Now, when you call the delete method on the model, the deleted_at column will be set to the current timestamp. When querying a model that uses soft deletes, the “deleted” models will not be included in query results. To soft delete a model you may use:

$model = Contents::find( $id );
$model->delete();

Deleted (soft) models are identified by the timestamp and if deleted_at field is NULL then it’s not deleted and using the restore method actually makes the deleted_at field NULL. To permanently delete a model you may use forceDelete method.