How can I avoid running ActiveRecord callbacks?

Use update_column (Rails >= v3.1) or update_columns (Rails >= 4.0) to skip callbacks and validations. Also with these methods, updated_at is not updated.

#Rails >= v3.1 only@person.update_column(:some_attribute, 'value')#Rails >= v4.0 only@person.update_columns(attributes)

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Persistence.html#method-i-update_column

#2: Skipping callbacks that also works while creating an object

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base  attr_accessor :skip_some_callbacks  before_validation :do_something  after_validation :do_something_else  skip_callback :validation, :before, :do_something, if: :skip_some_callbacks  skip_callback :validation, :after, :do_something_else, if: :skip_some_callbacksendperson = Person.new(person_params)person.skip_some_callbacks = trueperson.save

UPDATE (2020)

Apparently Rails has always supported :if and :unless options, so above code can be simplified as:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base  attr_accessor :skip_some_callbacks  before_validation :do_something, unless: :skip_some_callbacks  after_validation :do_something_else, unless: :skip_some_callbacksendperson = Person.new(person_params)person.skip_some_callbacks = trueperson.save

This solution is Rails 2 only.

I just investigated this and I think I have a solution. There are two ActiveRecord private methods that you can use:

update_without_callbackscreate_without_callbacks

You're going to have to use send to call these methods. examples:

p = Person.new(:name => 'foo')p.send(:create_without_callbacks)p = Person.find(1)p.send(:update_without_callbacks)

This is definitely something that you'll only really want to use in the console or while doing some random tests. Hope this helps!

Updated:

@Vikrant Chaudhary's solution seems better:

#Rails >= v3.1 only@person.update_column(:some_attribute, 'value')#Rails >= v4.0 only@person.update_columns(attributes)

My original answer :

see this link: How to skip ActiveRecord callbacks?

in Rails3,

assume we have a class definition:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base  after_save :generate_nick_nameend 

Approach1:

User.send(:create_without_callbacks)User.send(:update_without_callbacks)

Approach2: When you want to skip them in your rspec files or whatever, try this:

User.skip_callback(:save, :after, :generate_nick_name)User.create!()

NOTE: once this is done, if you are not in rspec environment, you should reset the callbacks:

User.set_callback(:save, :after, :generate_nick_name)

works fine for me on rails 3.0.5