Programatically update a single attribute in Store View Scope

Question

If you load a product in Store View scope, all the inherited data ("Use Default Values") comes with it... which makes perfect sense, so far so good.

$_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->setStoreId($storeId)->load($productId);

My problem is, if you then change one attribute and save, everything is saved at Store View scope.

$_product->setName($storeSpecificName)->save();

Now, if I look at the product in the admin, every "Use Default Values" checkbox is unticked :(

It doesn't help if I do $_product->save() or $_product->getResource()->save($_product). I even tried:

$_resource = $_product->getResource();
$_resource->isPartialSave(true);
$_resource->save($_product);

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what isPartialSave() does.

So, how do I change one (or more, but not all) attributes at Store View scope?

Answer 1

Load is pretty expensive memory wise.
You can use this for a faster update:

Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_action')->updateAttributes(
 array($productId),
 array('name' => $storeSpecificName),
 $storeId
);

• Doug McLean: That looks like a brilliant solution, thanks Marius! I did actually have the $product already - my code actually runs as an observer so it's using $_product = $event->getProduct(); and I (perhaps wrongly) simplified my question to use load instead - but this way still wins, as I don't have to muck about with changing the scope of the object and potentially interfering with other observers. I'll try it out now.
• Doug McLean: It's probably worth mentioning at this point that this can't be used to unset attributes at store view scope, i.e. to re-tick the "use default values" checkbox - as described in your answer here @Marius. For that, my answer below is working for me as a fallback (especially when I found I could use setId() instead of load()).
• Marius: @DougMcLean. that's true.

Answer 2

Found it! Thanks to https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/90342/4090

$_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->setStoreId($storeId)->load($productId);
$_product->setName($storeSpecificName);
$_product->getResource()->saveAttribute($_product, 'name');

• Doug McLean: I found you don't need to load() the product in question... if you use setId() instead, it works just fine for this purpose. Which of course makes a lovely big difference to speed & resource use :)