Synchronise multiple web service calls in serial order in swift

Question

I am hitting a web service url 10 times and getting the response. I am using Alamofire and SwiftyJSON . This is my controller code

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    let dispatchGroup = DispatchGroup()

    var weatherServiceURL = "http://samples.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London,uk&appid=b6907d289e10d714a6e88b30761fae22"

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        start()
    }

    func start() {
        weatherService()
        dispatchGroup.notify(queue: .main) {
            print("All services complete")
        }
    }

    func weatherService() {
        for i in 1...10 {
            dispatchGroup.enter()
            APIManager.apiGet(serviceName: self.weatherServiceURL, parameters: ["counter":i]) { (response:JSON?, error:NSError?, count:Int) in
                if let error = error {
                    print(error.localizedDescription)
                    return
                }
                guard let response = response else { return }
                print("\n\(response) \n\(count) response\n")
                self.dispatchGroup.leave()
            }
        }
    }
}

This is my Service Handler class code

class APIManager: NSObject {

    class func apiGet(serviceName:String,parameters: [String:Any]?, completionHandler: @escaping (JSON?, NSError?, Int) -> ()) {
        Alamofire.request(serviceName, method: .get, parameters: nil, encoding: URLEncoding.default, headers: nil).responseJSON { (response:DataResponse<Any>) in

            switch(response.result) {
            case .success(_):
                if let data = response.result.value{
                    let json = JSON(data)
                    completionHandler(json,nil, parameters!["counter"] as! Int)
                }
                break

            case .failure(_):
                completionHandler(nil,response.result.error as NSError?, parameters!["counter"] as! Int)
                break
            }
        }
    }
}

I am sending a counter key with the index of for loop just to keep the track of response of which index is coming back. But the response is not coming in serial order. We can expect 3rd response before the 2nd and 1st response. This is because the API call with APIManager.apiGet function call is asynchronous and is escaping and therefore continuing the for loop.

Also I used the dispatchQueue

let dispatchQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "com.test.Queue", qos: .userInteractive)

and converted the function as:

func weatherService() {
    for i in 1...10 {
        dispatchGroup.enter()
        dispatchQueue.async {
            APIManager.apiGet(serviceName: self.weatherServiceURL, parameters: ["counter":i]) { (response:JSON?, error:NSError?, count:Int) in
                if let error = error {
                    print(error.localizedDescription)
                    return
                }
                guard let response = response else { return }
                print("\n\(response) \n\(count) response\n")
                self.dispatchGroup.leave()
            }
        }
    }
}

Same result as the service calling code is asynchronous. If we make

dispatchQueue.sync {
   //service call 
}

then also we will not get the response in serial order since the networking call in async and dispatchQueue assumes the task is completed.

Condition is to hit the service in async manner only without freezing the UI. If I hit the service is synchronous manner, then I get my desired result. But blocking main thread is not at all acceptable.

I can manage this thing using array or some global bool variables, but I don't want to use them. Is there any other way I can get response in serial order in which it is called? Any help or hint is appreciated.

Answer 1

Solution: Use DispatchSemaphore s and a DispatchQueue

Rather than saving the closures, I decided to wrap everything up in a dispatch queue and use semaphores inside it

//Create a dispatch queue 
let dispatchQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "myQueue", qos: .background)

//Create a semaphore
let semaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 0)

func weatherService() {

    dispatchQueue.async {
        for i in 1...10 {
            APIManager.apiGet(serviceName: self.weatherServiceURL, parameters: ["counter":i]) { (response:JSON?, error:NSError?, count:Int) in
                if let error = error {
                    print(error.localizedDescription)
                    self.semaphore.signal()
                    return
                }
                guard let response = response else { 
                    self.semaphore.signal()
                    return 
                }

                print("\(count) ")

                //Check by index, the last service in this case
                if i == 10 {
                    print("Services Completed")
                } else {
                    print("An error occurred")
                }

                // Signals that the 'current' API request has completed
                self.semaphore.signal()
            }

            // Wait until the previous API request completes
            self.semaphore.wait()
        }
    }
    print("Start Fetching")
}

Output is this always

Answer 2

Idea

• index1 - index in your loop, when you create closure
• index2 - index of executed operation in container

You need to create container with closures. This container will save all closures. Container will check if index1 == index2 run all operations before index1 and after if index1 + 1 > exist .

So, this container will check the order of received closures and run closures one by one in ascending order.

Details

Xcode 9.4.1, Swift 4.1

Container

class ActionsRunController {

    typealias Func = ()->()
    private var actions: [Int: Func] = [:]
    private var dispatchSemaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 1)
    private var firstIndex = 0
    private var lastIndex = 0

    func add(at index: Int, action: Func?) {
        dispatchSemaphore.wait()
        actions[index] = action
        if lastIndex == index {
            while (actions[firstIndex] != nil) {
                actions[firstIndex]?()
                actions[firstIndex] = nil
                firstIndex += 1
            }
            lastIndex = firstIndex
        }
        dispatchSemaphore.signal()
    }
}

Full Code

Do no forget to add code of the Container here

import UIKit
import Alamofire
import SwiftyJSON

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    let dispatchGroup = DispatchGroup()

    var weatherServiceURL = "http://samples.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London,uk&appid=b6907d289e10d714a6e88b30761fae22"

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        start()
    }

    func start() {
        weatherService()
        dispatchGroup.notify(queue: .main) {
            print("All services complete")
        }
    }

    func weatherService() {
        for i in 0...9 {
            dispatchGroup.enter()
            APIManager.apiGet(serviceName: self.weatherServiceURL, counter: i) { (response:JSON?, error:NSError?, count:Int) in
                if let error = error {
                    print(error.localizedDescription)
                    return
                }
                //guard let response = response else { return }
                print("[executed] action \(count)")
                self.dispatchGroup.leave()
            }
        }
    }
}

class APIManager: NSObject {

    private static let actionsRunController = ActionsRunController()

    class func apiGet(serviceName:String, counter:  Int, completionHandler: @escaping (JSON?, NSError?, Int) -> ()) {
        Alamofire.request(serviceName, method: .get, parameters: nil, encoding: URLEncoding.default, headers: nil).responseJSON { (response:DataResponse<Any>) in

            //print("[created] action \(counter)")
            switch(response.result) {
            case .success(_):
                if let data = response.result.value{
                    let json = JSON(data)
                    actionsRunController.add(at: counter) {
                        completionHandler(json, nil, counter)
                    }
                }
                break

            case .failure(_):
                actionsRunController.add(at: counter) {
                    completionHandler(nil,response.result.error as NSError?, counter)
                }
                break
            }
        }
    }
}

Result

Answer 3

The simplest way to get the api calls made in order is to perform the "next" call in the completion handler of the previous, rather than using a for loop outside the api calls.

func weatherService(counter: Int = 1, maxCount: Int = 10) {
    guard counter <= maxCount else {
        return
    }
    dispatchGroup.enter()
    APIManager.apiGet(serviceName: self.weatherServiceURL, parameters: ["counter":i]) { (response:JSON?, error:NSError?, count:Int) in
            self.weatherService(counter: counter+1, maxCount: maxCount)
            if let error = error {
                print(error.localizedDescription)
                self.dispatchGroup.leave()
                return
            }
            guard let response = response else {
                self.dispatchGroup.leave()
                return 
            }
            print("\n\(response) \n\(count) response\n")
            self.dispatchGroup.leave()
        }
    }
}

I would advise against this though unless there's is some dependency on order (ie call number 2 needs information from the result of call 1) because it will take longer than parallel requests.

It would be much better to handle the fact that results may return out of order.

Also, when using a dispatch group you need to ensure that you call dispatchGroup.leave in all cases where the code completes; in your case you are not doing so in the case where an error occurs. This would result in the dispatchGroup.notify never firing if an error occurs in one or more requests.