Rolling back Transactions Without using a Block

Question

Note: This is a follow up question to Optimising Rspec Tests to Avoid Repeating Complex Setup Proceedures For reasons that are outside the scope of this question (see the note above), I want to be able to start a Rails database transaction and then rollback that transaction in a different scope. E.g: ``` def before_callback start_transaction # Start the transaction # Create/Update some records end def after_callback rollback_transaction # Rollback changes from before_callback and do_stuff end def do_stuff before_callback # Do some stuff after_callback end do_stuff ``` I realize this is a contrived example which could be resolved easily with `transaction do .. end` and a little refactoring, but in the context have in mind `do_stuff` is part of an external plugin that I really don't want to mess with. Is there a way to do something similar to what I just described in Rails?

Accepted Answer

For a crude quick-and-dirty solution you could just execute the required SQL commands directly on the database connection:

```
def start_transaction
  ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute("BEGIN")
end

def rollback_transaction
  ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute("ROLLBACK")
end
```

Also looking at the source of the `transaction` method might give you some ideas on how to approach this in a more refined manner.

(You can find it in `ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::DatabaseStatements` in `lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb`)

Rolling back Transactions Without using a Block

Solution

Problem