NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:queue:completionHandler: making multiple requests in a row? - objective-c

Question

I have been using NSURLConnection's sendAsynchronousRequest:queue:completionHandler: method which is great. But, I now need to make multiple requests in a row.
How can I do this while still using this great asychronous method?

Answer 1

There's lots of ways you can do this depending on the behavior you want.
You can send a bunch of asynchronous requests at once, track the number of requests that have been completed, and do something once they're all done:
NSInteger outstandingRequests = [requestsArray count];
for (NSURLRequest *request in requestsArray) {
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error) {
[self doSomethingWithData:data];
outstandingRequests--;
if (outstandingRequests == 0) {
[self doSomethingElse];
}
}];
}
You could chain the blocks together:
NSMutableArray *dataArray = [NSMutableArray array];
__block (^handler)(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error);
NSInteger currentRequestIndex = 0;
handler = ^{
[dataArray addObject:data];
currentRequestIndex++;
if (currentRequestIndex < [requestsArray count]) {
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:[requestsArray objectAtIndex:currentRequestIndex]
queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
completionHandler:handler];
} else {
[self doSomethingElse];
}
};
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:[requestsArray objectAtIndex:0]
queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
completionHandler:handler];
Or you could do all the requests synchronously in an ansynchronous block:
dispatch_queue_t callerQueue = dispatch_get_current_queue();
dispatch_queue_t downloadQueue = dispatch_queue_create("Lots of requests", NULL);
dispatch_async(downloadQueue, ^{
for (NSRURLRequest *request in requestsArray) {
[dataArray addObject:[NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil]];
}
dispatch_async(callerQueue, ^{
[self doSomethingWithDataArray:dataArray];
});
});
});
P.S. If you use any of these you should add some error checking.