Rails 7 adds ActiveRecord::Base#previously_persisted?

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Rails 7 adds method previously_persisted? in ActiveRecord::Base, which enables you to check if the object was existed previously and now is destroyed or deleted.

Example

# finds post by id 1
post = Post.find(1) 

# delete/destroy post
post.destroy
# or
post.delete

# check if object persisted previously?
post.previously_persisted?
=> true

Implementation

The implementation of this method is as simple as checking if the record is not new and is destroyed

  def previously_persisted?
    !new_record? && destroyed?
  end