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meteor/docs/client/full-api/api/reactive-var.md
2014-10-23 10:50:57 -07:00

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{{#template name="apiReactiveVar"}}
<h2 id="reactivevar_pkg"><span>ReactiveVar</span></h2>
To use `ReactiveVar`, add the `reactive-var` package to your project with
`$ meteor add reactive-var`.
{{> autoApiBox "ReactiveVar"}}
A ReactiveVar holds a single value that can be get and set, such that calling
`set` will invalidate any Computations that called `get`, according to the
usual contract for reactive data sources.
A ReactiveVar is similar to a Session variable, with a few differences:
* ReactiveVars don't have global names, like the "foo" in `Session.get("foo")`.
Instead, they may be created and used locally, for example attached to a
template instance, as in: `this.foo.get()`.
* ReactiveVars are not automatically migrated across hot code pushes,
whereas Session state is.
* ReactiveVars can hold any value, while Session variables are limited to
JSON or EJSON.
An important property of ReactiveVars &mdash; which is sometimes a
reason for using one &mdash; is that setting the value to the same
value as before has no effect; it does not trigger any invalidations.
So if one autorun sets a ReactiveVar, and another autorun gets the
ReactiveVar, a re-run of the first autorun won't necessarily trigger
the second. By default, only primitive values are compared this way,
while calling `set` on an argument that is an *object* (not a
primitive) always counts as a change. You can configure this behavior
using the `equalsFunc` argument.
{{> autoApiBox "ReactiveVar#get"}}
{{> autoApiBox "ReactiveVar#set"}}
{{/template}}