GCDKit

GCDKit is Grand Central Dispatch simplified with Swift.

• for Swift 1.2: Use version 1.0.1
• for Swift 2.1 / 2.2: Use the master branch

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Introduction

GCDKit implements the following constructs. To see how they work, jump right to the Common Usage Patterns section below.

• GCDQueue: An abstraction of the dispatch_queue_* API. GCDQueues are expressed as enums, because we typically only need to deal with these queue types:

public enum GCDQueue {
    case Main
    case UserInteractive
    case UserInitiated
    case Default
    case Utility
    case Background
    case Custom(dispatch_queue_t) // serial or concurrent
}

• GCDBlock: A struct that abstracts iOS 8's new dispatch_block_* family of APIs.
• GCDGroup: An abstraction of the dispatch_group_* API.
• GCDSemaphore: An abstraction of the dispatch_semaphore_* API.

Common Usage Patterns

Here are some common use cases and how you can write them using GCDKit.

Creating and initializing queues

With the iOS SDK:

let mainQueue = dispatch_get_main_queue()
let defaultQueue = dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0)
let customSerialQueue = dispatch_queue_create("mySerialQueue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL)
let customConcurrentQueue = dispatch_queue_create("myConcurrentQueue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT)

With GCDKit:

let mainQueue: GCDQueue = .Main
let defaultQueue: GCDQueue = .Default
let customSerialQueue: GCDQueue = .createSerial("mySerialQueue")
let customConcurrentQueue: GCDQueue = .createConcurrent("myConcurrentQueue")

In addition, custom queues created with dispatch_queue_create(...) typically target a default-priority global queue unless you use the dispatch_set_target_queue(...) API. For example, to raise the priority level of a created queue with the current SDK:

let customConcurrentQueue = dispatch_queue_create("myConcurrentQueue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT)
dispatch_set_target_queue(customConcurrentQueue, dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0))

With GCDKit, you can immediately specify the target queue on creation:

let customConcurrentQueue: GCDQueue = .createConcurrent("myConcurrentQueue", targetQueue: .UserInteractive)

Submitting tasks to queues

With the iOS SDK:

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0)) {
    // some heavy work...
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) {
        // send results to UI
    }
}

With GCDKit you can either start a task chain from GCDBlock.async(...):

GCDBlock.async(.Default) {
    // some heavy work...
}.notify(.Main) {
    // send results to UI
}

or directly from a specific GCDQueue enum value:

GCDQueue.Default.async {
    // some heavy work...
}.notify(.Main) {
    // send results to UI
}

You can chain .notify(...) calls as much as needed.

Launching and reporting completion of a group of tasks

With the iOS SDK:

let dispatchGroup = dispatch_group_create()

dispatch_group_enter(dispatchGroup)
doSomeLongTaskWithCompletion {
    dispatch_group_leave(dispatchGroup)
}

dispatch_group_async(dispatchGroup, dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0)) {
    // do another long task
}
dispatch_group_async(dispatchGroup, dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0)) {
    // do yet another long task
}

dispatch_group_notify(dispatchGroup, dispatch_get_main_queue()) {
    // report completion
}

With GCDKit you can still use the usual enter()-leave() pairs and you can chain async calls to the dispatch group:

let dispatchGroup = GCDGroup()

dispatchGroup.enter()
doSomeLongTaskWithCompletion {
    dispatchGroup.leave()
}

dispatchGroup.async(.Default) {
    // do another long task
}.async(.Default) {
    // do yet another long task
}.notify(.Main) {
    // report completion
}

Semaphores

With the iOS SDK:

let numberOfIterations: UInt = 10
let semaphore = dispatch_semaphore_create(Int(numberOfIterations))

dispatch_apply(numberOfIterations, dispatch_queue_create("myConcurrentQueue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT)) {
    (iteration: UInt) -> Void in

    // do work for iteration
    dispatch_semaphore_signal(semaphore)
}

dispatch_semaphore_wait(semaphore, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER)

With GCDKit:

let numberOfIterations: UInt = 10
let semaphore = GCDSemaphore(numberOfIterations)

GCDQueue.createConcurrent("myConcurrentQueue").apply(numberOfIterations) {
    (iteration: UInt) -> Void in

    // do work for iteration
    semaphore.signal()
}

semaphore.wait()

Contributions

Feel free to report any issues or send suggestions!

License

GCDKit is released under an MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more information