using dispatch_sync in Grand Central Dispatch

Question

Can anyone explain with really clear use cases what the purpose of dispatch_sync in GCD is for? I can\'t understand where and why I would have to u

Answer 1

David Gelhar left unsaid that his example will work only because he quietly created serial queue (passed NULL in dispatch_queue_create what is equal to DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL).

If you wish create concurrent queue (to gain all of multithread power), his code will lead to crash because of NSArray mutation (addObject:) during mutation (removeObjectAtIndex:) or even bad access (NSArray range beyond bounds). In that case we should use barrier to ensure exclusive access to the NSArray while the both blocks run. Not only does it exclude all other writes to the NSArray while it runs, but it also excludes all other reads, making the modification safe.

Example for concurrent queue should look like this:

NSMutableArray *a = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
// All access to `a` is via this concurrent dispatch queue!
dispatch_queue_t q = dispatch_queue_create("com.foo.samplequeue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT);

// append to array concurrently but safely and don't wait for block completion
dispatch_barrier_async(q, ^{ [a addObject:something]; }); 

__block Something *first = nil;
// pop 'Something first' from array concurrently and safely but wait for block completion...
dispatch_barrier_sync(q, ^{                        
        if ([a count] > 0) {               
             first = [a objectAtIndex:0];  
             [a removeObjectAtIndex:0];    
        }
});
// ... then here you get your 'first = [a objectAtIndex:0];' due to synchronised dispatch.
// If you use async instead of sync here, then first will be nil.