Cancel NSURLConnection Objective-C - objective-c

I have a tableviewapplication, wich when the user select one view it needs to parse some XML to display information.But sometimes the XML is not finished downloading and the user can press the button to select the other view,generating a crash.I think i need to cancel the connection or something to dont cause any conflitct with the new connection,but i dont know exactly how,it suppose to be in ViewWillDisappear correct?
Heres how i start the connection on ViewDidAppear:
NSMutableURLRequest * req = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc]initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"http://Adress"]
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData timeoutInterval:20.0f];
conn = [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:req delegate:self];
[UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = YES;
if(conn)
{
receivedData = [[NSMutableData alloc]init];
[DSBezelActivityView newActivityViewForView:self.view withLabel:#"Loading..."];
}
- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillDisappear:animated];
if(conn) [conn cancel];
}

You can call NSURLConnection's cancel method and it will prevent your connections delegate from being called with any more data. You could do this in viewWillDisappear if that's when it makes sense given how your app works.

Absolutely you can cancel NSURLConnection.
But you should be careful in cancelling it too.
If you decide to cancel it in viewWillDisappear,
then
You should not do,
autorelease
and also you should not,
release it anywhere.
Here below the brief explaination:
Do cancel your NSURLConnection delegate in viewWillDisappear
[nsurlconnection cancel];
and also you should release it here not anywhere,
[nsurlconnection release];
If you release the connection in somewhere like after your xml response received then,
It will call the viewWillDisappear method anyway,
here you are cancelling it , then it will lead your app to crash.
"deallocated objects will not be cancelled"
.
And also another situation will occurs while cancelling,
If user comes and immediately navigates other view first time, your nsurlconnection will be cancelled in viewWillDisappear method.
Again the user comes to the view and escapes immediately before your nsurlconnection initialized or allocated, also your app will be crashed because,
"deallocated objects will not be cancelled".
So, check your connection != nil before you cancel it
and also don't forgot to do
nsurlconnection = nil;
in the same time.
So that you can avoid the immediate calls [nsurlconnection cancel] crashes.
SO Finally , in your viewWillDisappear method you have to do is,
Need to check nsurlconnection != nil
Need to cancel it
Need to allocate null to your nsurlconnection
Need to release it in the same method.
Sample code will be like the following,
- (void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
if (nsurlconnection != nil)
{
[nsurlconnection cancel];
[nsurlconnection release];
nsurlconnection = nil;
}
}
Hope it's helpful... Happy coding ...

Related

NSThread is failing to load Selector method

So, I am trying to connect to a remote server to get and show data. in viewDidLoad I use an NSThread to call a function called doSomething
- (void)doSomething
{
#autoreleasepool
{
NSMutableURLRequest *httpRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:someURL];
[httpRequest setHTTPMethod:#"POST"];
[httpRequest setValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", httpRequestParametersClean.length] forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Length"];
[httpRequest setValue:#"application/x-www-form-urlencoded charset=utf-8" forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Type"];
[httpRequest setHTTPBody:httpRequestParametersClean];
(void)[[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:httpRequest delegate:self];
for (NSString* key in response)
{
// loop through returned values
}
}
}
The code in viewDidLoad is
[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:#selector(someURL) toTarget:self withObject:nil];
Then I have a REFRESH button which when clicked calls doSomething as well
by simply saying [self doSomething]
My problem is that when view is loaded, the response from server comes empty. I still get no response until I click on the refresh button. Strange! What am I doing wrong?
A NSURLConnection created with initWithRequest:delegate: works asynchronously, calling the delegate functions connection:didReceiveResponse:, connection:didReceiveData:, ... later, when data is read from the server. Your code does not even start the connection, so nothing will happen anyway.
The easiest way to fix your problem is to use the synchronous version
sendSynchronousRequest:returningResponse:error:
of NSURLConnection. If doSomething is executed in a separate thread, this will not block the UI.
Added: (Thanks to #geowar for mentioning this.) Note that you can also use the delegate-based NSURLConnection methods. These are more flexible (see e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/15591636/1187415 for a comparison). Another good choice is sendAsynchronousRequest:queue:completionHandler:, which creates a background thread automatically.

How to handle different requests using connectionDidFinishLoading in the same delegate?

Whenever I do a curl call using the below code:
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:requestURL];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData
timeoutInterval:30];
if (connectionInProgress) {
[connectionInProgress cancel];
}
connectionInProgress = [[NSURLConnection alloc]initWithRequest:request delegate:self startImmediately:YES];
connectionDidFinishLoading is my final destination where I can manipulate the response data and call my next methods to continue with the app . If I hard-code some specific tasks like
-(void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
{
NSXMLParser *parser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithData:xmlData];
[parser setDelegate:self];
[parser parse];
[someLabel setText:parsedTextFromXMLData];
}
If I need to do another curl call to a different address, wouldn't someLabel setText always get re-set again? Is there a way to make this delegate function behave differently on each curl call? (btw, is connectionDidFinishLoading usually the right place to put the next step of codes?) If so then wouldn't it always get called again by the next curl call?
Have a look at this S.O. post for a recipe concerning NSURLConnection and multiple requests.The suggestion is doing something like this:
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
if (connection == firstConnection) {
// do something
}
else if (connection == secondConnection) {
// do something else
}
}
EDIT: the idea here is that connectionDidFinishLoading is a method of your own delegate (so you write it). In the delegate, you store the address of each connection you create; then, when the connection comes back with the data, you tell which connection it is by comparing its address to the one you stored in the delegate. -END EDIT
Another option you have is using the ASIHTTPRequest framework, which offers a request-based (as opposed to connection-based) delegation mechanism, so each request has got a delegate object to handle the result; or, in other words, the delegate receives a reference to the request, so you can easily tell which request result you are handling.
ASIHTTPRequest offers a bunch of advantages over NSURLConnection. You can read about them in this S.O. post.
There're 2 options to do this:
you can implement a separate class, that will be responsible for handling NSURLConnection delegate stuff and create a separate instance for each request
you can use NSObject key-value methods on NSURLConnection instance for setting up some tag, that will be checked in connectionDidFinishLoading: method
For me, option 1 will be a better approach

Why release the NSURLConnection instance in this statement?

I read this in a book.
-(IBAction) updateTweets
{
tweetsView.text = #"";
[tweetsData release];
tweetsData = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.xml" ];
NSURLRequest *request = [[NSURLRequest alloc] initWithURL: url];
NSURLConnection *connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self];
[connection release];
[request release];
[activityIndicator startAnimating];
}
In this statement,is that correct to release the "connection" instance at that time? After releasing it which means this NSURLConnection instance will be destroyed since it's reference count is 0 ,how are we going to make this connection operation work after release this instance? THANKS.
I thought we should release it in one of the following callback methods,right?
connectionDidFinishLoading:
connection:didFailWithError:
It's actually fine to release it there, once the connection is sent out via initWithRequest, the only thing that matters is that the delegate exists or I believe the response will just be silently lost.
From what I can tell, the only reason to not release it there is if you want to call [connection cancel] at some point in one of the delegate functions, in which case it would be best to do what you suggest and release it in BOTH connectionDidFinishLoading and didFailWithError since only one of them will be called (right?).
Edit: For a more thorough answer, NSURLConnection initWithRequest is an asynchronous request. So it actually spawns it's own thread (but calls the delegate functions on the thread that called initWithRequest). So basically, on the thread that calls initWithRequest you are actually done with the connection object and you can release it. All the while it's doing stuff on some other thread that you don't need to be concerned with.
Also I should note that if you do release it there, make sure you DON'T release it in the finish/fail methods, because it won't be a valid object.

NSURLConnection leak?

i have set up a nsurl which grabs the data from http.
when i run instrument, it says i have a leak NSFNetwork object.
and how do i release theConnection in (void)ButtonClicked? or it will be release later on?
- (void)ButtonClicked {
NSURLRequest *theRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:KmlUrl]
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestUseProtocolCachePolicy
timeoutInterval:20.0f];
NSURLConnection *theConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];
if (theConnection) {
// receivedData is declared as a method instance elsewhere
NSMutableData *receivedData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
[self setKMLdata:receivedData];
} else {
// inform the user that the download could not be made
}
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
// append the new data to the receivedData
// receivedData is declared as a method instance elsewhere
[KMLdata appendData:data];
NSLog(#"didReceiveData");
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
{
// release the connection, and the data object
[connection release];
[KMLdata release];
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{
// release the connection, and the data object
[connection release];
// receivedData is declared as a method instance elsewhere
[KMLdata release];
}
I finally found the answer for this.
The error in the above code (which by the way is the near-exact sample from the SDK docs) is not in the memory management code. Autorelease is one option, manual release is another. Regardless of how you handle your NSURLConnection object, you get leaks using NSURLConnection.
First up, here is the solution. Just copy these 3 lines of code directly into connectionDidFinishLoading, didFailWithError and anywhere else you release the NSURLConnection object.
NSURLCache *sharedCache = [[NSURLCache alloc] initWithMemoryCapacity:0 diskCapacity:0 diskPath:nil];
[NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:sharedCache];
[sharedCache release];
Credit to mpramodjain on http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=573253 for the code.
The problem seems to be this – the SDK caches the requests and replies on the iPhone. Even it seems if your NSMutableURLRequest cachePolicy is set to not load the reply from the cache.
The silly thing is that it seems to cache a lot of data by default. I'm transmitting a lot of data (split into multiple connections) and started to get memory warnings, and finally my App died.
The docs we need are in NSURLCache (not NSURLConnection), they state:
NSURLCache implements the caching of
responses to URL load requests by
mapping NSURLRequest objects to
NSCachedURLResponse objects. It is a
composite of an in-memory and an
on-disk cache.
Methods are provided to manipulate the
sizes of each of these caches as well
as to control the path on disk to use
for persistent storage of cache data.
Those three lines have the effect of nuking the cache totally. After adding them to my App (GPS Log), my #living object count remains steady.
Hello have you test this delegate method ?
- (NSCachedURLResponse *)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection willCacheResponse:(NSCachedURLResponse *)cachedResponse
{
return nil;
}
You can manage the cache more precisely.
"reset" NSURLCache *sharedCache can cause problems on other part of your code ?
This is a common question and is solved by the magic of [object autorelease]. In your code this would be as follows:
NSURLConnection *theConnection = [[[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self] autorelease];
In this way, the object is automatically added to the "autorelease pool" and dealloc'd at the start of the next run loop after it is no longer referenced.
Hope that helps
Edit: Also, I don't see why you're needing to call -retain on your receivedData variable.
I am using the static method/autoreleased approach and it appears to work fine:
[NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];
This way you don't even have to worry about releasing in the delegate callbacks. It turns out that the retain count of the connection is actually 2 (not 1) after it is alloc'd in the examples above, which changes the way I thought about this memory "leak."
#rpetrich I actually don't think you need to worry about the delegate being released before the connection is released. The connection retains it's delegate and the connection itself is actually retained by some sort of open connections queue. I wrote a blog post on my experiments with NSURLConnection on my blog:
"Potential leak of object" with NSURLConnection

What's wrong on following URLConnection?

See also:
Objective-C Asynchronous Web Request with Cookies
I spent a day writing this code and can anyone tell me what is wrong here?
WSHelper is inherited from NSObject, I even tried NSDocument and NSObjectController and everything..
-(void) loadUrl: (NSString*) urlStr{
url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:urlStr];
request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url cachePolicy: NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData timeoutInterval: 60.0];
connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self startImmediately:YES];
if(connection)
{
receivedData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
//[connection start];
}
else
{ display error etc... }
NSApplication * app = [NSApplication sharedApplication];
[app runModalForWindow: waitWindow];// <-- this is the problem...
}
-(void)connection: (NSURLConnection*)connection didReceiveData:(NSData*)data{
progressText = #"Receiving Data...";
[receivedData appendData:data];
}
-(void)connection: (NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error{
progressText = #"Error...";
NSAlert * alert = [[NSAlert alloc] init];
[alert setMessageText:[error localizedDescription]];
[alert runModal];
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection{
progressText = #"Done...";
pData = [[NSData alloc] initWithData:receivedData];
[self hideWindow];
}
The code just wont do anything, it doesnt progress at all. I even tried it with/without startImmediately:YES but no luck !!!, this is executed in main window so even the thread and its run loop is running successfully.
I tried calling synchronous request, and it is working correctly !! But I need async solution.
I have added CoreServices.Framework in project, is there anything more I should be adding to the project? any compiler settings? Or do i have to initialize anything before I can use NSURLConnection?
Any solution to run NSURLConnection on different thread on its own NSRunLoop, Objective-C and MAC Development has no sample code anywhere in documentation that makes everything so difficult to code.
I also met the same problem that didn't get the delegate method called when using NSURLConnection in a Modal Window.
after some investigation, following code resolve it.
NSURLConnection* conn = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:requst delegate:self startImmediately:NO];
[conn scheduleRunLoop:[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] forMode:NSModalPanelRunLoopMode];
[conn start];
However, when connectionDidFinishLoading called, [NSApp stopModal] doesn't work, need call [NSApp abortModal] instead.
Firstly you're making starting the connection too complicated. Change to:
connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self]
Remove [connection start]. Now:
Is your app definitely running the run loop normally? NSURLConnection requires this to work.
Are you able to perform a synchronous load of the URL request?
In the debugger, can you see that url is what you expect it to be? What is it?
Is it possible that you're deallocating WSHelper before any delegate messages are received? NSURLConnection is asynchoronous after all.
One does not need to do anything special to use NSURLConnection, it's a straightforward part of the Foundation framework. No special compiler settings required. No initialization before use. Nothing. Please don't start blindly trying stuff like bringing in CoreServices.Framework.
As sending the request synchronously works, there must be something wrong with your handling of the asynchronous aspect. It could be:
The runloop is not running in NSDefaultRunLoopMode so the connection is unable to schedule itself.
Some other part of your code is calling -cancel on the connection before it has a chance to load.
You are managing to deallocate the connection before it has a chance to load.
Real problem
Ah, in fact I've just realised what's going on. You are calling:
-[NSApp runModalForWindow:]
Read the description of what this method does. It's not running the run loop like NSURLConnection expects. I'd say that really, you don't want to be presenting a window quite like this while running a URL connection for it.
I'd also suggest that you implement the -connection:didReceiveResponse: delegate method too. You want to check here that the server is returning the expected status code.
You say that you're using this in a modal dialog? A modal dialog puts the run loop into a different mode. You should be able to get this to work by scheduling it to run in the modal dialog run loop mode, in addition to the normal run loop mode. Try adding this line of code after you allocate connection in loadURL:
[connection scheduleInRunLoop:[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] forMode:NSModalPanelRunLoopMode];
Hope that helps.
How do you know it isn't doing anything? Are there any error or warning messages during the compile? Are any error messages showing up on console when the program is running?
Have you tries setting breakpoints in your code and following through what you expect to be happening?