iOS - Async NSURLConnection inside NSOperation

I know this question was asked many times on SO, but I didn't manage to make it work in my project...

So, I want to subclass NSOperation and make it download a file using NSURLConnection. What is the right way to do it? here is my code which doesn't work: First, I'm adding all my operations in a loop:

DownloadFileOperation *operation;
NSOperationQueue *queue = [[NSOperationQueue alloc] init];
for (int i=0; i<10; i++) {
operation = [[DownloadFileOperation alloc] init];
operation.urlString = pdfUrlString;
[queue addOperation:operation];
operation = nil; }

And here is my subclass:

@interface DownloadHandbookOperation : NSOperation <NSURLConnectionDelegate>
{

}

@property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *urlString;

@end


@implementation DownloadHandbookOperation
{
    NSString *filePath;
    NSFileHandle *file;
    NSURLConnection * connection;
}

- (void)start
{
    if (![NSThread isMainThread])
    {
        [self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(start) withObject:nil waitUntilDone:NO];
        return;
    }

    NSURL *url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:[self.urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

    NSMutableURLRequest *req = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
    [req addValue:@"Basic ***=" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Authorization"];
    connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:req delegate:self startImmediately:YES];

}

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)conn didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{
    NSString *filename = [[conn.originalRequest.URL absoluteString] lastPathComponent];
    filename = [filename stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

    filePath = [[NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0] stringByAppendingPathComponent:filename];
    [[NSFileManager defaultManager] createFileAtPath:filePath contents:nil attributes:nil];

    file = [NSFileHandle fileHandleForUpdatingAtPath:filePath] ;
    if (file)
    {
        [file seekToEndOfFile];
    }
    else
        [self finish];
}

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)conn didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
    if (file) {
        [file seekToEndOfFile];
    }
    [file writeData:data];
}

- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)conn
{
    [file closeFile];
    [self finish];
}

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)conn didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{
    connection = nil;

    [self finish];
}

- (void)cancel
{
    [super cancel];
    [connection cancel];
}


- (void)finish
{
    NSLog(@"operationfinished.");
}


@end

What am I doing wrong?

You need to properly configure your operation to execute as a "concurrent operation"

Concurrency Programming Guide: Configuring Operations for Concurrent Execution

You need to return isConcurrent = YES and properly manage the other state flags, isExecuting and isFinished in a KVO compliant manner.

To illustrate the general idea here is a post from the engineers at Pulse that describes their solution with some easy to follow demo code you can download and review.

Pulse Engineering Blog: Concurrent Downloads using NSOperationQueues **

This code also handles the requirement that NSURLConnection is started on a thread with an active runloop by ensuring that it starts it on the main thread.

(** link is now to archive.org, I think pulse was acquired and have taken their old site down)