Vue.js 2: action upon state variable change - vuejs2

Question

I am using a simple state manager (NOT vuex) as detailed in the official docs. Simplified, it looks like this:
export const stateholder = {
state: {
teams: [{id: 1, name:'Dallas Cowboys'}, {id: 2, name:'Chicago Bears'}, {id: 3, name:'Philadelphia Eagles'}, {id:4, name:'L.A. Rams'}],
selectedTeam: 2,
players: []
}
getPlayerList: async function() {
await axios.get(`http://www.someapi.com/api/teams/${selectedTeam}/players`)
.then((response) => {
this.state.players = response.data;
})
}
}
How can I (reactively, not via the onChange event of an HTML element) ensure players gets updated (via getPlayerList) every time the selectedTeam changes?
Any examples of simple state that goes a little further than the official docs? Thank you.

Answer 1

Internally, Vue uses Object.defineProperty to convert properties to getter/setter pairs to make them reactive. This is mentioned in the docs at https://v2.vuejs.org/v2/guide/reactivity.html#How-Changes-Are-Tracked:
When you pass a plain JavaScript object to a Vue instance as its data
option, Vue will walk through all of its properties and convert them
to getter/setters using Object.defineProperty.
You can see how this is set up in the Vue source code here: https://github.com/vuejs/vue/blob/79cabadeace0e01fb63aa9f220f41193c0ca93af/src/core/observer/index.js#L134.
You could do the same to trigger getPlayerList when selectedTeam changes:
function defineReactive(obj, key) {
let val = obj[key]
Object.defineProperty(obj, key, {
enumerable: true,
configurable: true,
get: function reactiveGetter() {
return val;
},
set: function reactiveSetter(newVal) {
val = newVal;
stateholder.getPlayerList();
}
})
}
defineReactive(stateholder.state, 'selectedTeam');
Or you could set it up implicitly using an internal property:
const stateholder = {
state: {
teams: [/* ... */],
_selectedTeam: 2,
get selectedTeam() {
return this._selectedTeam;
},
set selectedTeam(val) {
this._selectedTeam = val;
stateholder.getPlayerList();
},
players: []
},
getPlayerList: async function() {
/* ... */
},
};
Your question is also similar to Call a function when a property gets set on an object, and you may find some more information there.

Answer 2

You could use v-on:change or #change for short to trigger getPlayerList.
Here a fiddle, simulating the request with setTimeout.