Question

I have a model where geocodes are calculated before the model is saved using geokit-rails plugin. I have to run a Rake task where the state field is replaced by its abbreviation in the database. I was planning to use a hash with the states and its mapped abbreviations for this task. While doing this, I dont want to calculate the geocodes again, as this will take time for each record. Here is my code:

Site.all.each do |site|
  site.state = Site.convert_to_abbr(site.state)
  site.save(false)
end

Site model

US_STATES = {
  "Alabama" => "AL", 
  "Alaska" => "AK",
  ..
  ..
}

before_save :generate_lat_lon

def generate_lat_lon
  puts "Entered validation"
  @address = "#{address1}, #{city}, #{state}"
  @location = Geokit::Geocoders::MultiGeocoder.geocode(@address)

  if @location.success
    self.lat = @location.lat
    self.lon = @location.lng
  else
    self.lat = nil
    self.lon = nil
  end
end 

def self.convert_to_abbr(state_string)
  US_STATES[state_string.to_s.strip.titlecase] ? US_STATES[state_string.to_s.strip.titlecase] : state_string
end

But the problem with the above code is that, with save(false), the validations are skipped, but the validation checkings are not skipped. So, the geocodes are calculated before saving a record and this is very time consuming. Is there a method to skip validation checking also in Rails?

Answer 1

You could add an attr_accessor :calculate_lat_long, and set that to true before anything that calls save.

Your model would then have:

before_save :generate_lat_lon, :if => :calculate_lat_lon