Life of save in ActiveRecord

Following code was tested with edge rails (rails4) .

In a RubyonRails application we save records often. It is one of the most used methods in ActiveRecord. In the blog we are going to take a look at the life cycle of save operation.

ActiveRecord::Base

A typical model looks like this.

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
end

Now lets look at ActiveRecord::Base class in its entirety.

module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    extend ActiveModel::Naming

    extend ActiveSupport::Benchmarkable
    extend ActiveSupport::DescendantsTracker

    extend ConnectionHandling
    extend QueryCache::ClassMethods
    extend Querying
    extend Translation
    extend DynamicMatchers
    extend Explain

    include Persistence
    include ReadonlyAttributes
    include ModelSchema
    include Inheritance
    include Scoping
    include Sanitization
    include AttributeAssignment
    include ActiveModel::Conversion
    include Integration
    include Validations
    include CounterCache
    include Locking::Optimistic
    include Locking::Pessimistic
    include AttributeMethods
    include Callbacks
    include Timestamp
    include Associations
    include ActiveModel::SecurePassword
    include AutosaveAssociation
    include NestedAttributes
    include Aggregations
    include Transactions
    include Reflection
    include Serialization
    include Store
    include Core
  end

  ActiveSupport.run_load_hooks(:active_record, Base)
end

Base class extends and includes a lot of modules. Here we are going to look at the four modules that have method def save .

module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    ......................
    include Persistence
    .......................
    include Validations
    ........................
    include AttributeMethods
    ........................
    include Transactions
    ........................
  end
end

include Persistence

Module Persistence defines save method like this

def save(*)
  create_or_update
rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid
  false
end

Now lets see method create_or_update .

def create_or_update
  raise ReadOnlyRecord if readonly?
  result = new_record? ? create_record : update_record
  result != false
end

So save method invokes create_or_update and create_or_update method either creates a record or updates a record. Dead simple.

include Validations

In module Validations the save method is defined as

def save(options={})
  perform_validations(options) ? super : false
end

In this case the save method simply invokes a call to perform_validations .

include AttributeMethods

Module AttributeMethods includes a bunch of modules like this

module ActiveRecord
  module AttributeMethods
    extend ActiveSupport::Concern
    include ActiveModel::AttributeMethods

    included do
      include Read
      include Write
      include BeforeTypeCast
      include Query
      include PrimaryKey
      include TimeZoneConversion
      include Dirty
      include Serialization
    end

Here we want to look at Dirty module which has save method defined as following.

def save(*)
  if status = super
    @previously_changed = changes
    @changed_attributes.clear
  end
  status
end

Since this module is all about tracking if a record is dirty or not, the save method tracks the changed values.

include Transactions

In module Transactions the save method is defined as

def save(*) #:nodoc:
  rollback_active_record_state! do
    with_transaction_returning_status { super }
  end
end

The method rollback_active_record_state! is defined as

def rollback_active_record_state!
  remember_transaction_record_state
  yield
rescue Exception
  restore_transaction_record_state
  raise
ensure
  clear_transaction_record_state
end

And the method with_transaction_returning_status is defined as

def with_transaction_returning_status
  status = nil
  self.class.transaction do
    add_to_transaction
    begin
      status = yield
    rescue ActiveRecord::Rollback
      @_start_transaction_state[:level] = (@_start_transaction_state[:level] || 0) - 1
      status = nil
    end

    raise ActiveRecord::Rollback unless status
  end
  status
end

Together methods rollback_active_record_state! and with_transaction_returning_status ensure that all the operations happening inside save is happening in a single transaction.

Why save method needs to be in a transaction .

A model can define a number of callbacks including after_save and before_save. All those callbacks are operated within a transaction. It means if an after_save callback operation raises an exception then the save operation is rolled back.

Not only that a number of associations like has_many and belongs_to use callbacks to handle association manipulation. In order to ensure the integrity of the operation the save operation is wrapped in a transaction .

reverse order of operation

In the Base class the modules are included in the following order.

module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    ......................
    include Persistence
    .......................
    include Validations
    ........................
    include AttributeMethods
    ........................
    include Transactions
    ........................
  end
end

All the four modules have save method. The way ruby works the last module to be included gets to act of the method first. So the order in which save method gets execute is Transactions, AttributeMethods, Validations and Persistence .

To get a visual feel, I added a puts inside each of the save methods. Here is the result.

> User.new.save
1.9.1 :001 > User.new.save
entering save in transactions
   (0.1ms)  begin transaction
entering save in attribute_methods
entering save in validations
entering save in persistence
  SQL (47.3ms)  INSERT INTO "users" ("created_at", "updated_at") VALUES (?, ?)  [["created_at", Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:56:52 UTC +00:00], ["updated_at", Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:56:52 UTC +00:00]]
leaving save in persistence
leaving save in validations
leaving save in attribute_methods
   (17.6ms)  rollback transaction
leaving save in transactions
 => nil

As you can see the order of operations is

entering save in transactions
entering save in attribute_methods
entering save in validations
entering save in persistence

leaving save in persistence
leaving save in validations
leaving save in attribute_methods
leaving save in transactions