Creating Records

We can instantiate a new Product record with the following code:

store(dev)> product = Product.new(name: "T-Shirt")
=> #<Product:0x000000012e616c30 id: nil, name: "T-Shirt", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>

The product variable is an instance of Product. It has not been saved to the database, and so does not have an ID, created_at, or updated_at timestamps.

We can call save to write the record to the database.

store(dev)> product.save
  TRANSACTION (0.1ms)  BEGIN immediate TRANSACTION /*application='Store'*/
  Product Create (0.9ms)  INSERT INTO "products" ("name", "created_at", "updated_at") VALUES ('T-Shirt', '2024-11-09 16:35:01.117836', '2024-11-09 16:35:01.117836') RETURNING "id" /*application='Store'*/
  TRANSACTION (0.9ms)  COMMIT TRANSACTION /*application='Store'*/
=> true

When save is called, Rails takes the attributes in memory and generates an INSERT SQL query to insert this record into the database.

Rails also updates the object in memory with the database record id along with the created_at and updated_at timestamps. We can see that by printing out the product variable.

store(dev)> product
=> #<Product:0x00000001221f6260 id: 1, name: "T-Shirt", created_at: "2024-11-09 16:35:01.117836000 +0000", updated_at: "2024-11-09 16:35:01.117836000 +0000">

Similar to save, we can use create to instantiate and save an Active Record object in a single call.

store(dev)> Product.create(name: "Pants")
  TRANSACTION (0.1ms)  BEGIN immediate TRANSACTION /*application='Store'*/
  Product Create (0.4ms)  INSERT INTO "products" ("name", "created_at", "updated_at") VALUES ('Pants', '2024-11-09 16:36:01.856751', '2024-11-09 16:36:01.856751') RETURNING "id" /*application='Store'*/
  TRANSACTION (0.1ms)  COMMIT TRANSACTION /*application='Store'*/
=> #<Product:0x0000000120485c80 id: 2, name: "Pants", created_at: "2024-11-09 16:36:01.856751000 +0000", updated_at: "2024-11-09 16:36:01.856751000 +0000">
Active Record Basics
Querying Records
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