Object.update_attribute(:only_one_field, "Some Value")
Object.update_attributes(:field1 => "value", :field2 => "value2", :field3 => "value3")

Both of these will update an object without having to explicitly tell AR to update.

Rails API says:

for update_attribute

Updates a single attribute and saves the record without going through the normal validation procedure. This is especially useful for boolean flags on existing records. The regular update_attribute method in Base is replaced with this when the validations module is mixed in, which it is by default.

for update_attributes

Updates all the attributes from the passed-in Hash and saves the record. If the object is invalid, the saving will fail and false will be returned.

So if I don't want to have the object validated I should use update_attribute. What if I have this update on a before_save, will it stackoverflow?

My question is does update_attribute also bypass the before save or just the validation.

Also, what is the correct syntax to pass a hash to update_attributes... check out my example at the top.