Await

Swift port of C# Await using Cocoa's Run Loop mechanism.

(Useful for unit testing, but needs special care for application use)

Without Await

showProgressHUD("Start!")     // displays AFTER download finished (you know why)
let image = downloadLargeImageFromWeb()  // OMG downloading from main-thread!!!
showProgressHUD("Finished!")  // displays after download finished

showProgressHUD("Start!")  // main-thread

// OK let's use dispatch_async then...
dispatch_async(globalQueue) {
    image = downloadLargeImageFromWeb()  // background-thread
    
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) {
        showProgressHUD("Finished!")  // main-thread

        // want more nested blocks here?
    }
}

With Await

showProgressHUD("Start!")

let image = await { downloadLargeImageFromWeb() }

// because of await's running Run Loop, "Start!" will be displayed immediately here

showProgressHUD("Finished!")  // displays after download finished

How to use

await

let image = await { downloadLargeImageFromWeb() }

await calls dispatch_async for given closure & runs Run Loop until finished.

await + until

var shouldStop = false
var container: SomeContainer

let result = await(until: shouldStop) {
    container.data = nil

    dispatch_async(globalQueue) {
        container.data = downloadData()
        shouldStop = true
    }

    return container.data
}

Use until to manually adjust the Run Loop running time. This is especially useful in combination with async-programming monads like Promise.

Take a look at PromiseKit example:

import PromiseKit
var promise = Promise<NSData> { (fulfiller, rejecter) in ... }
...

let result = await(until: !promise.pending) { promise.value }
// or, let result = await(promise)

await + timeout

let image = await(timeout: 3) { downloadLargeImageFromWeb() }  // returns nil if 3 sec has passed

await + finishable closure

You can even use finish() or finish(returnValue) inside closure to manually stop running Run Loop instead of using await + until.

let data = await { finish in
    dispatch_async(queue) {
        let d = downloadData()
        finish(d)  // pass result data
    }
}

var data: NSData?
await { finish in
    dispatch_async(queue) {
        let d = downloadData()
        data = d
        finish()  // no return
    }
}

For application use

For applicaiton use, you MUST wrap await calls with async as follows:

async {
    var image = await { downloadLargeImageFromWeb() }
    image = await { filterImage(image) }
}

This is to ensure that await will not block dispatch_get_main_queue() which often causes UIKit not responding to touches.

Limitation

await + timeout and nested awaits may not finish at proper time inside async due to nested RunLoop running.