Rails: Adding data without triggering before_save

Question

I have a table where I am dumping some transaction data.

I have a transaction model. In it, there is a before_save in which I process the transaction through the credit_card gateway and use the results to fill out the rest of the fields in the transaction model.

I have a Transaction Observer watching that sends out a notification when It sees a new transaction. It then attempts to save the results of that attempt IN THE TRANSACTION using update_attribute.

This is unsurprisingly causing an infinite loop since the observer is triggering the before_save and around we go.

Is there a way to update one or two attributes in the transaction record without triggering the before_save callback? Is my only solution to move the notification results to another table?

Answer 1

Quick and untested, but the basic approach I use is to allow a condition on the callback. Condition can be whatever you want obviously.

class ModelWithCallback < ActiveRecord::Base

  before_save :update_stuff, :if => :update_needed?

  private
    def update_stuff
      ## Your callback code
    end

    def update_needed?
      !(changed.any?{ |field| field == "name" || field == "address")
    end
end

Answer 2

There is a private ActiveRecord methods that you can use:

update_without_callbacks

since it is private, you need to use send

transaction.send(:update_without_callbacks)