Can you force Vue.js to reload/re-render?

Question

Just a quick question.

Can you force Vue.js to reload/recalculate everything? If so, how?

Answer 1

using v-if directive

<div v-if="trulyvalue">
    <component-here />
 </div>

So simply by changing the value of trulyvalue from false to true will cause the component between the div to rerender again

Answer 2

This seems like a pretty clean solution from matthiasg on this issue:

you can also use :key="someVariableUnderYourControl" and change the key when you want to component to be completely rebuilt

For my use case, I was feeding a Vuex getter into a component as a prop. Somehow Vuex would fetch the data but the reactivity wouldn't reliably kick in to rerender the component. In my case, setting the component key to some attribute on the prop guaranteed a refresh when the getters (and the attribute) finally resolved.

Answer 3

Why?

...do you need to force an update?

Perhaps you are not exploring Vue at its best:

To have Vue automatically react to value changes, the objects must be initially declared in data. Or, if not, they must be added using Vue.set().

See comments in the demo below. Or open the same demo in a JSFiddle here.

new Vue({
  el: '#app',
  data: {
    person: {
      name: 'Edson'
    }
  },
  methods: {
    changeName() {
      // because name is declared in data, whenever it
      // changes, Vue automatically updates
      this.person.name = 'Arantes';
    },
    changeNickname() {
      // because nickname is NOT declared in data, when it
      // changes, Vue will NOT automatically update
      this.person.nickname = 'Pele';
      // although if anything else updates, this change will be seen
    },
    changeNicknameProperly() {
      // when some property is NOT INITIALLY declared in data, the correct way
      // to add it is using Vue.set or this.$set
      Vue.set(this.person, 'address', '123th avenue.');
      
      // subsequent changes can be done directly now and it will auto update
      this.person.address = '345th avenue.';
    }
  }
})

/* CSS just for the demo, it is not necessary at all! */
span:nth-of-type(1),button:nth-of-type(1) { color: blue; }
span:nth-of-type(2),button:nth-of-type(2) { color: red; }
span:nth-of-type(3),button:nth-of-type(3) { color: green; }
span { font-family: monospace }

<script src="https://unpkg.com/vue"></script>

<div id="app">
  <span>person.name: {{ person.name }}</span><br>
  <span>person.nickname: {{ person.nickname }}</span><br>
  <span>person.address: {{ person.address }}</span><br>
  <br>
  <button @click="changeName">this.person.name = 'Arantes'; (will auto update because `name` was in `data`)</button><br>
  <button @click="changeNickname">this.person.nickname = 'Pele'; (will NOT auto update because `nickname` was not in `data`)</button><br>
  <button @click="changeNicknameProperly">Vue.set(this.person, 'address', '99th st.'); (WILL auto update even though `address` was not in `data`)</button>
  <br>
  <br>
  For more info, read the comments in the code. Or check the docs on <b>Reactivity</b> (link below).
</div>

To master this part of Vue, check the Official Docs on Reactivity - Change Detection Caveats. It is a must read!

Answer 4

I found a way. It's a bit hacky but works.

vm.$set("x",0);
vm.$delete("x");

Where vm is your view-model object, and x is a non-existent variable.

Vue.js will complain about this in the console log but it does trigger a refresh for all data. Tested with version 1.0.26.

Answer 5

Use vm.$set('varName', value). Look for details into Change_Detection_Caveats.

Answer 6

Try this magic spell:

vm.$forceUpdate();

No need to create any hanging vars :)

Update: I found this solution when I only started working with VueJS. However further exploration proved this approach as a crutch. As far as I recall, in a while I got rid of it simply putting all the properties that failed to refresh automatically (mostly nested ones) into computed properties.

More info here: https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/computed.html