Is there a clean API for resetting instance variables on 'reload' in ActiveRecord?

Question

In an ActiveRecord::Base model, I can reset the state of the model to what it was when I got it from the database with reload, as long as the attri

Answer 1

ActiveRecord does not provide a way to do this, it can only acts on the model attributes.

That being said, I think a more elegant way to do it would be to loop over the ivars and set them to whatever you like :

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def reload(options = nil)
    super
    self.instance_variables.each do |ivar|
      next if ivar == '@attributes'
      self.instance_variable_set(ivar, nil)      
    end
  end
 end

Note that we skip @attributes because AR is taking care of it when you reload the attributes.