Swift 4 async call with for loop execute in order using DispatchGroup, DispatchQueue and DispatchSemaphore

Question

I want to run a for loop in swift in order, DispatchGroup will fire them together, so I want to use DispatchQueue and DispatchSemaphore to achieve my goal. I failed to make my program work, how can I force them to wait and run one by one?

let dispatchGroup = DispatchGroup()
let dispatchQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "taskQueue")
let dispatchSemaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 1)

for c in self.categories {

    dispatchSemaphore.wait()

    dispatchQueue.async(group: dispatchGroup) {

        if let id = c.categoryId {

            dispatchGroup.enter()

            self.downloadProductsByCategory(categoryId: id) { success, data in

                if success, let products = data {

                    self.products.append(products)
                }

                dispatchSemaphore.signal()
                dispatchGroup.leave()
            }
        }
    }
}

dispatchGroup.notify(queue: dispatchQueue) {

    self.refreshOrderTable { _ in

        self.productCollectionView.reloadData()

        NVActivityIndicatorPresenter.sharedInstance.stopAnimating()
    }
}

---

Thanks to Palle, here is my final code:

let dispatchGroup = DispatchGroup()
let dispatchQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "taskQueue")
let dispatchSemaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 0)

dispatchQueue.async {

    for c in self.categories {

        if let id = c.categoryId {

            dispatchGroup.enter()

            self.downloadProductsByCategory(categoryId: id) { success, data in

                if success, let products = data {

                    self.products.append(products)
                }

                dispatchSemaphore.signal()
                dispatchGroup.leave()
            }

            dispatchSemaphore.wait()
        }
    }
}

dispatchGroup.notify(queue: dispatchQueue) {

    DispatchQueue.main.async {

        self.refreshOrderTable { _ in

            self.productCollectionView.reloadData()
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

You can put the whole loop in a block instead of putting just the download function in a block:

dispatchQueue.async {
    for c in self.categories {
        if let id = c.categoryId {
            self.downloadProductsByCategory(categoryId: id) { success, data in
                if success, let products = data {
                    self.products.append(products)
                }

                dispatchSemaphore.signal()
            }
            dispatchSemaphore.wait()
        }
    }
}

---

You can simplify your code by using compactMap to unwrap your product ids:

for id in self.categories.compactMap({$0.categoryId}) { ... }