Rails 6 has a rich API that allows you to update your ActiveRecord objects in several different ways. Some methods have slightly different behavior which can sometimes result in unexpected consequences so it’s important to understand their differences.

Note: This article was written for Rails 6. See cheat sheets for other versions here:

Here’s a cheat sheet highlighting the differences between all the methods available for setting attributes in Rails 6:

Cheat Sheet

Method Uses Default Accessor Saves to Database Runs Validations Runs Callbacks Updates updated_at/on Respects Readonly
attribute= Yes No n/a n/a n/a n/a
attributes= Yes No n/a n/a n/a n/a
assign_attributes Yes No n/a n/a n/a n/a
write_attribute No No n/a n/a n/a n/a
[]= No No n/a n/a n/a n/a
update Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
update_attribute Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
update_attributes1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
update_column Yes Yes No No No Yes
update_columns Yes Yes No No No Yes
User.update Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
User.update_all No Yes No No No No
User.upsert No Yes No No No No
User.upsert_all No Yes No No No No
User.insert No Yes No No No No
User.insert_all No Yes No No No No

  1. update_attributes has been deprecated in favor of update in Rails 6. ↩