Question

I would like to update a customer without actually loading the entire customer model. Here is my current code:

$customer = Mage::getModel('customer/customer')->load($customerId, 'entity_id');
$customer->setEmail('[e-mail]');
$customer->save();

Is it possible to update the model without first loading it?

Answer 1

The code bellow should work fine as long as the model’s ID is defined, it will however loose the previous data the object had.

INSERT

$customer = Mage::getModel('customer/customer');
$customer->setEmail('[e-mail]');
$customer->save();
// will create a customer with an email set to `[e-mail]`
// everything else will either be default or null

UPDATE with hydration

$customer = Mage::getModel('customer/customer')->load($customerId, 'entity_id');
// this step is also known as `hydration` because the model is like
// a sponge in the watter, it sucks in the values
$customer->setEmail('[e-mail]');
$customer->save();
// will update a customer and only ovewrite its email to `[e-mail]`
// everything else will be as it was before the save

UPDATE without hydration

$customer = Mage::getModel('customer/customer');
$customer->setId($customerId);
$customer->setEmail('[e-mail]');
$customer->save();
// will replace all of the values present on the initial customer with
// an email set to `[e-mail]`and everything else set to be default or null

UPDATE single attribute

The principle is the fact that you can set an attribute value by specifying the entity_id, attribute_code/attribute_id and the value.

/* still looking for a usage snippet */

/* defined in `Mage_Eav_Model_Entity_Abstract` */
protected function _setAttributeValue($object, $valueRow)
{
    $attribute = $this->getAttribute($valueRow['attribute_id']);
    if($attribute) {
        $attributeCode = $attribute->getAttributeCode();
        $object->setData($attributeCode, $valueRow['value']);
        $attribute->getBackend()->setEntityValueId($object, $valueRow['value_id']);
    }

    return $this;
}

This obviously does not have the aforementioned negative side-effect.