Today I found a useful method in ActiveRecord, restore_attributes.
This method restores attributes on a dirty model. Use it when you are hacking in the Rails console and want to quickly return to a clean slate.
Dirty the record:
[1] pry(main)> p = Post.first
Post Load (0.4ms) SELECT "posts".* FROM "posts" ORDER BY "posts"."id" ASC LIMIT 1
=> #<Post:0x007f8462b09eb8
id: 106,
title: "Hello World!",
created_at: Sun, 09 Feb 2014 17:15:01 CST -06:00,
url_slug: "hello-world">
[2] pry(main)> p.url_slug = 'foobar'
=> "foobar"
[3] pry(main)> p.created_at = Time.now
=> 2015-10-13 11:41:37 -0500
[4] pry(main)> p
=> #<Post:0x007f8462b09eb8
id: 106,
title: "Hello World!",
created_at: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:41:37 CDT -05:00,
url_slug: "foobar">
And restore:
[5] pry(main)> p.restore_attributes
=> ["url_slug", "created_at"]
[6] pry(main)> p
=> #<Post:0x007f8462b09eb8
id: 106,
title: "Hello World!",
created_at: Sun, 09 Feb 2014 17:15:01 CST -06:00,
*url_slug: "hello-world">*
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activemodel/lib/active_model/dirty.rb#L191