Question

I’m doing a project using core data, and as far as I know anything done in the core data thread has to remain in said thread.

I do a call to an API to download some news items and then load them into the database:

  [self.database.managedObjectContext performBlock:^{
    for (NSDictionary *itemInfo in result) {
      NSLog(@"%@", itemInfo);
      [Item createItemWithInfo:itemInfo inManagedObjectContext:self.database.managedObjectContext];
    }

    [self.database.managedObjectContext save:nil];
  }];

In my create method, besides setting up all the data in the objects I have an additional call to get an image related to the news item in question:

+ (Item *)createItemWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info inManagedObjectContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *)context {
  Item *item;

  NSFetchRequest *request = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:@"Item"];
  request.predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"itemId = %@", [info valueForKeyPath:@"News.id_contennoticias"]];
  NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor = [NSSortDescriptor sortDescriptorWithKey:@"itemId" ascending:YES];
  request.sortDescriptors = [NSArray arrayWithObject:sortDescriptor];

  NSError *error = nil;
  NSArray *matches = [context executeFetchRequest:request error:&error];

  if (!matches || ([matches count] > 1)) {
    // handle error
  } else if ([matches count] == 0) {
    item = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"Item" inManagedObjectContext:context];
    item.itemId = [NSNumber numberWithInteger:[[info valueForKeyPath:@"News.id_contennoticias"] integerValue] ];
    item.title = [info valueForKeyPath:@"News.titulo_contennoticias"];
    item.summary = [info valueForKeyPath:@"News.sumario_contennoticias"];
    item.content = [info valueForKeyPath:@"News.texto_contennoticias"];

    NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    dateFormat.dateFormat = @"yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss";
    NSDate *creationDate = [dateFormat dateFromString:[info valueForKeyPath:@"News.fechacre_contennoticias"]];
    item.creationDate = creationDate;

    dispatch_queue_t imageDownloadQueue = dispatch_queue_create("image downloader", NULL);
    dispatch_async(imageDownloadQueue, ^{
      NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/files/imagenprincipal/%@", BASE_PATH, [info valueForKeyPath:@"News.imgprincipal"]]];
      NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
      dispatch_async(dispatch_get_current_queue(), ^{
        item.image = imageData;
      });
    });
  } else {
    item = [matches lastObject];
  }

  return item;  
}

On this part:

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_current_queue(), ^{
  item.image = imageData;
});

I’m getting the error, my app just dies there. Also it says that dispatch_get_current_queue() is deprecated in iOS 6.

Answer 1

Since dispatch_get_current_queue() is called from within a block on the imageDownloadQueue, why aren’t you using imageDownloadQueue directly? If you want to run it on the moc queue, then make sure not to use dispatch_get_current_queue().

In general be careful with using dispatch_get_current_queue(). Quoting from the Dispatch Queues page in the Apple Concurrency Programming guide:

Use the dispatch_get_current_queue function for debugging purposes or
to test the identity of the current queue.