[feature] - trigger method to rerun

[ecwyne]

It would be useful to trigger ReactiveMethod to invalidate previously returned results and rerun.

Proposed API

Template.myTemplate.helpers({
  helperName: function (){
    return ReactiveMethod.call('methodName', 'a', 'b');
  }
})

//elsewhere
ReactiveMethod.invalidate('methodName', 'a', 'b');
//helperName reruns method and returns new result

Implementation

reactive-method.js

  ReactiveMethod = {
    call: ...
    apply: ...
    invalidate: function (/* arguments */){
      var cc = Tracker.currentComputation;
      //ensure computation existence, serialize args, etc...
      delete cc._reactiveMethodData[serializedArgs];
      cc.invalidate();
    }
  }

I am more than willing to implement this and create a PR. I believe this method could be called "invalidate" or "changed" or "rerun", did't know if you'd have any preferences or any other thoughts on implementing this API @stubailo

[stubailo]

I'd love to accept a PR for this, but unfortunately it's not as simple as your proposed implementation because Tracker.currentComputation will not be the correct object. It might require changing the result caching to be global instead of per-computation.

[ecwyne]

@stubailo

Here's a working implementation. I would love to hear your thoughts https://github.com/stubailo/meteor-reactive-method/compare/master...ecwyne:master

[stubailo]

Wow, looks nice!

[stubailo]

Going to review now.

[stubailo]

Done! Published 1.0.2 with this feature. I decided to split up invalidateCall and invalidateApply, seemed cleaner than supporting two APIs in one.

[ecwyne]

Great! Glad to have this feature! Glad you were able to figure out a way to not store computations forever!

[stubailo]

Haha yeah with these kinds of libraries it's easy to accidentally introduce memory leaks..