Difference between [NSThread detachNewThreadSelect

Question

I've been using -performSelectorInBackground in many of my apps, sort of oblivious to -detachNewThreadSelector. Now I am wondering what the differences are between the two. Are they pretty much interchangeable, or are there differences and places where one is superior to the other? Thanks!

Answer 1

They're identical. See documentation.

performSelectorInBackground:withObject: The effect of calling this method is the same as if you called the detachNewThreadSelector:toTarget:withObject: method of NSThread with the current object, selector, and parameter object as parameters.

Answer 2

Corey, if you're running on a new thread and you're using [object autorelease], you'll need to create your own autorelease pool. Fairly simple to do:

- (void)uploadDataOnThread
{
    NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    // do something here...

    [pool release];
}

Answer 3

Interesting you guys can't point out any differences between them-

I'll tell you this much. We have an iphone app that was locking up while we displayed the "internet activity" disclosure icon in the top bar and a window that said "Sending..." while we sent an audio file up to a server and performSelectorInBackground: was NOT working. When we swapped out performSelectorInBackground with detachNewThreadSelector, it worked fine but now it complains that no autoreleased objects running in that thread are subject to being released by the pool.. maybe this is because the pool is in the main thread?

Answer 4

As Michael says, they are identical. I think, to use a thread by performSelectorInBackground:withObject: is easier way rather than NSThread.

However, NSThread can control its priority, stacksize, etc. If you'd like to customize the behavior, I recommend NSThread instead of performSelectorInBackground:withObject:.