Wait until multiple networking requests have all executed - including their completion blocks

Question

I have multiple operations (they're AFNetworking requests) with completion blocks that takes some time to execute, and a Core Data object that needs to be saved at the end of all the requests.

MyCoreDataObject *coreDataObject;

AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation1 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation1 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute1 = responseObject;
    sleep(5);
}];
[operation1 start];

AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation2 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation2 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute2 = responseObject;
    sleep(10);
}];
[operation1 operation2];

[context save:nil];

Of course, this does not work as I want because the requests are asynchronous. I tried adding an NSOperationQueue like so:

NSOperationQueue *operationQueue = [[NSOperationQueue alloc] init];
[operationQueue setMaxConcurrentOperationCount:2];

AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation1 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation1 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute1 = responseObject;
    sleep(5);
}];
[operationQueue addOperation:operation1];

AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation2 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation2 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute2 = responseObject;
    sleep(10);
}];
[operationQueue addOperation:operation2];

[imageQueue waitUntilAllOperationsAreFinished];
[context save:nil];

This looks a bit better. Using waitUntilAllOperationsAreFinished, my queue blocks the current thread until my requests are finished, but not until my success Blocks are finished, which is really what I need.

Any ideas on how to achieve this in a good way?

Answer 1

Use dispatch groups.

dispatch_group_t group = dispatch_group_create();

MyCoreDataObject *coreDataObject;

dispatch_group_enter(group);
AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation1 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation1 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute1 = responseObject;
    sleep(5);
    dispatch_group_leave(group);
}];
[operation1 start];

dispatch_group_enter(group);
AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation2 = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request1];
[operation2 setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    coreDataObject.attribute2 = responseObject;
    sleep(10);
    dispatch_group_leave(group);
}];
[operation2 start];

dispatch_group_wait(group, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER);
dispatch_release(group);

[context save:nil];

Answer 2

AFNetworking has designed method for this kind of operations, which abstracts from GCD:

-enqueueBatchOfHTTPRequestOperationsWithRequests:progressBlock:completionBlock:

-enqueueBatchOfHTTPRequestOperations:progressBlock:completionBlock:

Take a look at FAQ

Answer 3

I belive something like this:

NSMutableArray *mutableOperations = [NSMutableArray array];
for (NSURL *fileURL in filesToUpload) {
    NSURLRequest *request = [[AFHTTPRequestSerializer serializer] multipartFormRequestWithMethod:@"POST" URLString:@"http://example.com/upload" parameters:nil constructingBodyWithBlock:^(id<AFMultipartFormData> formData) {
        [formData appendPartWithFileURL:fileURL name:@"images[]" error:nil];
    }];

    AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request];

    [mutableOperations addObject:operation];
}

NSArray *operations = [AFURLConnectionOperation batchOfRequestOperations:@[...] progressBlock:^(NSUInteger numberOfFinishedOperations, NSUInteger totalNumberOfOperations) {
    NSLog(@"%lu of %lu complete", numberOfFinishedOperations, totalNumberOfOperations);
} completionBlock:^(NSArray *operations) {
    NSLog(@"All operations in batch complete");
}];
[[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] addOperations:operations waitUntilFinished:NO];

refering to docs: http://cocoadocs.org/docsets/AFNetworking/2.5.0/