Waiting until two async blocks are executed before

Question

When using GCD, we want to wait until two async blocks are executed and done before moving on to the next steps of execution. What is the best way to do that?

We tried the following, but it doesn't seem to work:

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^ {
    // block1
});


dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^ {
    // block2
});

// wait until both the block1 and block2 are done before start block3
// how to do that?

dispatch_sync(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^ {
    // block3
});

Answer 1

Not to say other answers are not great for certain circumstances, but this is one snippet I always user from Google:

- (void)runSigninThenInvokeSelector:(SEL)signInDoneSel {


    if (signInDoneSel) {
        [self performSelector:signInDoneSel];
    }

}

Answer 2

Another GCD alternative is a barrier:

dispatch_queue_t queue = dispatch_queue_create("com.company.app.queue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT);

dispatch_async(queue, ^{ 
    NSLog(@"start one!\n");  
    sleep(4);  
    NSLog(@"end one!\n");
});

dispatch_async(queue, ^{  
    NSLog(@"start two!\n");  
    sleep(2);  
    NSLog(@"end two!\n"); 
});

dispatch_barrier_async(queue, ^{  
    NSLog(@"Hi, I'm the final block!\n");  
});

Just create a concurrent queue, dispatch your two blocks, and then dispatch the final block with barrier, which will make it wait for the other two to finish.

Answer 3

Expanding on Jörn Eyrich answer (upvote his answer if you upvote this one), if you do not have control over the dispatch_async calls for your blocks, as might be the case for async completion blocks, you can use the GCD groups using dispatch_group_enter and dispatch_group_leave directly.

In this example, we're pretending computeInBackground is something we cannot change (imagine it is a delegate callback, NSURLConnection completionHandler, or whatever), and thus we don't have access to the dispatch calls.

// create a group
dispatch_group_t group = dispatch_group_create();

// pair a dispatch_group_enter for each dispatch_group_leave
dispatch_group_enter(group);     // pair 1 enter
[self computeInBackground:1 completion:^{
    NSLog(@"1 done");
    dispatch_group_leave(group); // pair 1 leave
}];

// again... (and again...)
dispatch_group_enter(group);     // pair 2 enter
[self computeInBackground:2 completion:^{
    NSLog(@"2 done");
    dispatch_group_leave(group); // pair 2 leave
}];

// Next, setup the code to execute after all the paired enter/leave calls.
//
// Option 1: Get a notification on a block that will be scheduled on the specified queue:
dispatch_group_notify(group, dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^{
    NSLog(@"finally!");
});

// Option 2: Block an wait for the calls to complete in code already running
// (as cbartel points out, be careful with running this on the main/UI queue!):
//
// dispatch_group_wait(group, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER); // blocks current thread
// NSLog(@"finally!");

In this example, computeInBackground:completion: is implemented as:

- (void)computeInBackground:(int)no completion:(void (^)(void))block {
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^{
        NSLog(@"%d starting", no);
        sleep(no*2);
        block();
    });
}

Output (with timestamps from a run):

12:57:02.574  2 starting
12:57:02.574  1 starting
12:57:04.590  1 done
12:57:06.590  2 done
12:57:06.591  finally!

Answer 4

Accepted answer in swift:

let group = DispatchGroup()

group.async(group: DispatchQueue.global(qos: .default), execute: {
    // block1
    print("Block1")
    Thread.sleep(forTimeInterval: 5.0)
    print("Block1 End")
})


group.async(group: DispatchQueue.global(qos: .default), execute: {
    // block2
    print("Block2")
    Thread.sleep(forTimeInterval: 8.0)
    print("Block2 End")
})

dispatch_group_notify(group, DispatchQueue.global(qos: .default), {
    // block3
    print("Block3")
})

// only for non-ARC projects, handled automatically in ARC-enabled projects.
dispatch_release(group)