how to skip or call another model's hook in rails?

Question

I have a logic like this:

# SomeModel
before_save :before_save_callback
def before_save_callback
  AnotherModel.find(..).update!(name: 'random text')
end

# AnotherModel
before_save :before_save_callback
def before_save_callback
  self.assign_attributes(name: 'random text')
end

There are 2 triggers that do the same update. However, if I do it like this, and update SomeModel, it will do the update 2x (before_save_callback in SomeModel and before_save_callback in AnotherModel). Is there a way where I can skip callback without using update_column as I only want to ignore this specific callback? Or maybe can I trigger before_save_callback of AnotherModel in SomeModel without actually saving any attributes? Thanks

Answer 1

You can get around model callbacks with transient attributes:

# AnotherModel
attr_accessible :skip_some_callback
before_save :before_save_callback, unless: :skip_some_callback
# ...

# SomeModel
def before_save_callback
  AnotherModel.find(..).update!(skip_some_callback: true, name: 'random text')
end

But this pattern can quickly turn into a callback hell and for complex cases you can better organize your code into more high-level patterns like service objects, interactors, factories etc.