struggling with asynchronous patterns using NSURLSession - xcode

Question

I'm using Xcode 7 and Swift 2 but my question isn't necessarily code specific, I'll gladly take help of any variety.
In my app I have a list of favorites. Due to API TOS I can't store any data, so I just keep a stub I can use to lookup when the user opens the app. I also have to look up each favorite one by one as there is no batch method. Right now I have something like this:
self.api.loadFavorite(id, completion: { (event, errorMessage) -> Void in
if errorMessage == "" {
if let rc = self.refreshControl {
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
rc.endRefreshing()
}
}
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
self.viewData.append(event)
self.viewData.sortInPlace({ $0.eventDate.compare($1.eventDate) == NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending })
self.tableView.reloadData()
}
} else {
// some more error handling here
}
})
in api.loadFavorite I'm making a typical urlSession.dataTaskWithURL which is itself asynchronous.
You can see what happens here is that the results are loaded in one by one and after each one the view refreshes. This does work but its not optimal, for long lists you get a noticeable "flickering" as the view sorts and refreshes.
I want to be able to get all the results then just refresh once. I tried putting a dispatch group around the api.loadFavorites but the async calls in dataTaskWith URL don't seem to be bound by that group. I also tried putting the dispatch group around just the dataTaskWithURL but didn't have any better luck. The dispatch_group_notify always fires before all the data tasks are done.
Am I going at this all wrong? (probably) I considered switching to synchronous calls in the background thread since the api only allows one connection per client anyway but that just feels like the wrong approach.
I'd love to know how to get async calls that make other async calls grouped up so that I can get a single notification to update my UI.
For the record I've read about every dispatch group thread I could find here and I haven't been able to make any of them work. Most examples on the web are very simple, a series of print's in a dispatch group with a sleep to prove the case.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you want to invoke your method loadFavorite asynchronously in a loop for all favorite ids - which executes them in parallel - you can achieve this with a new method as shown below:
func loadFavorites(ids:[Int], completion: ([Event], ErrorType?) -> ()) {
var count = ids.count
var events = [Event]()
if count == 0 {
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(0, 0)) {
completion(events, nil)
}
return
}
let sync_queue = dispatch_queue_create("sync_queue", dispatch_queue_attr_make_with_qos_class(DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL, QOS_CLASS_USER_INITIATED, 0))
for i in ids {
self.api.loadFavorite(i) { (event, message) in
dispatch_async(sync_queue) {
if message == "" {
events.append(event)
if --count == 0 {
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(0, 0)) {
completion(events, nil)
}
}
}
else {
// handle error
}
}
}
}
}
Note:
- Use a sync queue in order to synchronise access to shared array
events and the counter!
- Use a global dispatch queue where you invoke the completion handler!
Then call it like below:
self.loadFavorites(favourites) { (events, error) in
if (error == nil) {
events.sortInPlace({ $0.eventDate.compare($1.eventDate) == NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending })
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
self.viewData = events
self.tableView.reloadData()
}
}
if let rc = self.refreshControl {
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
rc.endRefreshing()
}
}
Note also, that you need a different approach when you want to ensure that your calls to loadFavorite should be sequential.
If you need to support cancellation (well, who does not require this?), you might try to cancel the NSURLSession's tasks. However, in this case I would recommend to utilise a third party library which already supports cancellation of network tasks.
Alternatively, and in order to greatly simplify your asynchronous problems like those, build your network task and any other asynchronous task around a general utility class, frequently called Future or Promise. A future represents an eventual result, and is quite light wight. They are also "composable", that is you can define "continuations" which get invoked when the future completes, which in turn returns yet another future where you can add more continuations, and so force. See wiki Futures and Promises.
There are a couple of implementations in Swift and Objective-C. Ideally, these should also support cancellation. Unfortunately, I don't know any Swift library implementing Futures or Promises which support cancellation at this time - except my own library, which is not yet Open Source.
Another library which helps to solve common and also very complex asynchronous patterns is ReactiveCocoa, though it has a very steep learning curve and adds quite a lot of code to your project.

Answer 2

This is what finally worked for me. Easy once I figured it out. My problem was trying to take ObjC examples and rework them for swift.
func migrateFavorites(completion:(error: Bool) -> Void) {
let migrationGroup = dispatch_group_create()
let queue = dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0)
// A lot of other code in there, fetching some core data etc
dispatch_group_enter(migrationGroup)
self.api.loadFavorite(id, completion: { (event, errorMessage) -> Void in
if errorMessage == "" {
if let rc = self.refreshControl {
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
rc.endRefreshing()
}
}
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
self.viewData.append(event)
self.viewData.sortInPlace({ $0.eventDate.compare($1.eventDate) == NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending })
self.tableView.reloadData()
}
} else {
// some more error handling here
}
dispatch_group_leave(migrationGroup)
})
dispatch_group_notify(migrationGroup, queue) { () -> Void in
NSLog("Migration Queue Complete")
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
completion(error: migrationError)
}
}
}
The key was:
ENTER the group just before the async call
LEAVE the group as the last line in the completion handler
As I mentioned all this is wrapped up in a function so I put the function's completion handler inside the dispatch_group_notify. So I call this function and the completion handler only gets invoked when all the async tasks are complete. Back on my main thread I check for the error and refresh the ui.
Hopefully this helps someone with the same problem.