[PhillyOnRails] ActiveRecord: updating a single attribute

[Chris Cera]

Hi everyone,

Is there a way to update just one attribute of a record without
causing all the attributes to be re-set?  When I use the
update_attribute() or increment(), since they call save() it
causes every attribute to get re-set.  I verified this in the
mysql 'General Query Log'.  Example:
    item.update_attribute(:normal_views, item.normal_views + 1)

I feel that there must be a more elegant solution than this:
    sql = 'UPDATE documents SET normal_views = normal_views + 1 WHERE id = ' + item.id.to_s
    ActiveRecord::Base.connection.update(sql)

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  Thank you, -Chris

ref: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html

-- 
Christopher D. Cera
CTO, Hovitate LLC
http://vuzit.com
P: 215.435.2289
F: 267.295.7369