Is it changed?
Rails has some useful methods to check whether an object has changed since first being loaded into memory. Here are some examples:
2.1.0 :001 > user = User.find(1)
=> #<User id: 1, name: "Roderick", email: "rod@example.com", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>
2.1.0 :002 > user.name = 'Jimmy'
=> "Jimmy"
2.1.0 :003 > user.changed?
=> true
2.1.0 :004 > user.changed
=> ["name"]
2.1.0 :005 > user.changes
=> {"name"=>["Roderick", "Jimmy"]}
2.1.0 :006 > user.name_changed?
=> true
2.1.0 :007 > user.email_changed?
=> false
2.1.0 :008 > user.name_was
=> "Roderick"
2.1.0 :009 > user.save
=> true
2.1.0 :010 > user.changed?
=> falseMore info here: ActiveModel::Dirty.