---
title: "Rails 5 Updating a record without updating timestamps"
description: "We can save a record without updating timestamps in Rails 5"
canonical_url: "https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/rails-5-allows-updating-without-updating-timestamps"
markdown_url: "https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/rails-5-allows-updating-without-updating-timestamps.md"
---

# Rails 5 Updating a record without updating timestamps

We can save a record without updating timestamps in Rails 5

- Author: Abhishek Jain
- Published: May 9, 2016
- Categories: Rails 5, Rails

In Rails 4.x, when we save an `ActiveRecord` object then Rails automatically
updates fields `updated_at` or `updated_on`.

```ruby

>> user = User.new(name: 'John', email: 'john@example.com')
>> user.save
 INSERT INTO "users" ("name", "created_at", "updated_at", "email") VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?)  [["name", "John"], ["created_at", 2016-03-16 09:12:44 UTC], ["updated_at", 2016-03-16 09:12:44 UTC], ["email", "john@example.com"]]
=> true

>> user.updated_at
=> Wed, 16 Mar 2016 09:12:44 UTC +00:00

>> user.name = "Mark"
>> user.save
  UPDATE "users" SET "name" = ?, "updated_at" = ? WHERE "users"."id" = ?  [["name", "Mark"], ["updated_at", 2016-03-16 09:15:30 UTC], ["id", 12]]
=> true

>> user.updated_at
=> Wed, 16 Mar 2016 09:15:30 UTC +00:00

```

## Addition of touch option in ActiveRecord::Base#save

In Rails 5, by passing `touch: false` as an option to `save`, we can update the
object without updating timestamps. The default option for `touch` is `true`.

```ruby

>> user.updated_at
=> Wed, 16 Mar 2016 09:15:30 UTC +00:00

>> user.name = "Dan"
>> user.save(touch: false)
  UPDATE "users" SET "name" = ? WHERE "users"."id" = ?  [["name", "Dan"], ["id", 12]]
=> true

>> user.updated_at
=> Wed, 16 Mar 2016 09:15:30 UTC +00:00

```

This works only when we are updating a record and does not work when a record is
created.

```ruby

>> user = User.new(name: 'Tom', email: 'tom@example.com')
>> user.save(touch: false)
 INSERT INTO "users" ("name", "created_at", "updated_at", "email") VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?)  [["name", "Tom"], ["created_at", 2016-03-21 06:57:23 UTC], ["updated_at", 2016-03-21 06:57:23 UTC], ["email", "tom@example.com"]])

>> user.updated_at
=> Mon, 21 Mar 2016 07:04:04 UTC +00:00

```

## Links

- [Human page](https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/rails-5-allows-updating-without-updating-timestamps)