What is the easiest way to duplicate an activerecord record?

Question

I want to make a copy of an activerecord record, changing a single field in the process (in addition to the id). What is the simplest way to accomplish this?

I realize I could create a new record, and then iterate over each of the fields copying the data field-by-field - but I figured there must be an easier way to do this...

such as:

 @newrecord=Record.copy(:id)  *perhaps?*

Answer 1

To get a copy, use the clone (or dup for rails 3.1+) method:

# rails < 3.1
new_record = old_record.clone

#rails >= 3.1
new_record = old_record.dup

Then you can change whichever fields you want.

ActiveRecord overrides the built-in Object#clone to give you a new (not saved to the DB) record with an unassigned ID.
Note that it does not copy associations, so you'll have to do this manually if you need to.

Rails 3.1 clone is a shallow copy, use dup instead...