I won't be able to return a value with Alamofire in Swift

Question

The current code I\'m having doens\'t seem to return anything, I can\'t find out what is causing the issue.

func getQuests(category: NSString, count: Int) -&         


        

Answer 1

When doing asynchronous work inside a function, it is not possible to return the value as you would like to. Functions that have asynchronous parts in it usually let you pass in a "completion handler", which will get executed once the asynchronous task is complete.

In your case, this would mean, you have to change your function "getQuests" like this for example:

func getQuests(category: NSString, count: Int, completionHandler: (NSArray -> Void)) {

    Alamofire.request(.GET, apiUrlString, parameters: ["category": category, "count": count])
        .responseJSON { (request, response, json, error) in
            dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), {
                let quests = json as? NSArray
                // pass the array of quests, or an empty array to your completionHandler
                completionHandler(quests ?? [])
            })
    }
}

You can then call this function from somewhere and pass in the completion handler where you do something with the quests retrieved:

getQuests("Easy", count: 5, completionHandler: {
    quests in
        println(quests)
    })

Hope this gets you started.