How can I avoid running ActiveRecord callbacks?

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_callbacks
create_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!

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_callbacks
end

person = Person.new(person_params)
person.skip_some_callbacks = true
person.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_callbacks
end

person = Person.new(person_params)
person.skip_some_callbacks = true
person.save

If the goal is to simply insert a record without callbacks or validations, and you would like to do it without resorting to additional gems, adding conditional checks, using RAW SQL, or futzing with your exiting code in any way, consider using a "shadow object" pointing to your existing db table. Like so:

class ImportedPerson < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.table_name = 'people'
end

This works with every version of Rails, is threadsafe, and completely eliminates all validations and callbacks with no modifications to your existing code. You can just toss that class declaration in right before your actual import, and you should be good to go. Just remember to use your new class to insert the object, like:

ImportedPerson.new( person_attributes )

---

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_name
end 

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