Managing multiple asynchronous NSURLConnection connections

I have a ton of repeating code in my class that looks like the following:

NSURLConnection *connection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request
                                                              delegate:self];

The problem with asynchronous requests is when you have various requests going off, and you have a delegate assigned to treat them all as one entity, a lot of branching and ugly code begins to formulate going:

What kind of data are we getting back? If it contains this, do that, else do other. It would be useful I think to be able to tag these asynchronous requests, kind of like you're able to tag views with IDs.

I was curious what strategy is most efficient for managing a class that handles multiple asynchronous requests.

I track responses in an CFMutableDictionaryRef keyed by the NSURLConnection associated with it. i.e.:

connectionToInfoMapping =
    CFDictionaryCreateMutable(
        kCFAllocatorDefault,
        0,
        &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks,
        &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks);

It may seem odd to use this instead of NSMutableDictionary but I do it because this CFDictionary only retains its keys (the NSURLConnection) whereas NSDictionary copies its keys (and NSURLConnection doesn't support copying).

Once that's done:

CFDictionaryAddValue(
    connectionToInfoMapping,
    connection,
    [NSMutableDictionary
        dictionaryWithObject:[NSMutableData data]
        forKey:@"receivedData"]);

and now I have an "info" dictionary of data for each connection that I can use to track information about the connection and the "info" dictionary already contains a mutable data object that I can use to store the reply data as it comes in.

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
    NSMutableDictionary *connectionInfo =
        CFDictionaryGetValue(connectionToInfoMapping, connection);
    [[connectionInfo objectForKey:@"receivedData"] appendData:data];
}

I have a project where I have two distinct NSURLConnections, and wanted to use the same delegate. What I did was create two properties in my class, one for each connection. Then in the delegate method, I check to see if which connection it is


- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
    if (connection == self.savingConnection) {
        [self.savingReturnedData appendData:data];
    }
    else {
        [self.sharingReturnedData appendData:data];
    }
}

This also allows me to cancel a specific connection by name when needed.

Subclassing NSURLConnection to hold the data is clean, less code than some of the other answers, is more flexible, and requires less thought about reference management.

// DataURLConnection.h
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
@interface DataURLConnection : NSURLConnection
@property(nonatomic, strong) NSMutableData *data;
@end

// DataURLConnection.m
#import "DataURLConnection.h"
@implementation DataURLConnection
@synthesize data;
@end

Use it as you would NSURLConnection and accumulate the data in its data property:

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response {
    ((DataURLConnection *)connection).data = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
}

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
    [((DataURLConnection *)connection).data appendData:data];
}

That's it.

If you want to go further you can add a block to serve as a callback with just a couple more lines of code:

// Add to DataURLConnection.h/.m
@property(nonatomic, copy) void (^onComplete)();

Set it like this:

DataURLConnection *con = [[DataURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self startImmediately:NO];
con.onComplete = ^{
    [self myMethod:con];
};
[con start];

and invoke it when loading is finished like this:

- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
    ((DataURLConnection *)connection).onComplete();
}

You can extend the block to accept parameters or just pass the DataURLConnection as an argument to the method that needs it within the no-args block as shown

THIS IS NOT A NEW ANSWER. PLEASE LET ME SHOW YOU HOW I DID

To distinguish different NSURLConnection within same class's delegate methods, I use NSMutableDictionary, to set and remove the NSURLConnection, using its (NSString *)description as key.

The object I chose for setObject:forKey is the unique URL that is used for initiating NSURLRequest, the NSURLConnection uses.

Once set NSURLConnection is evaluated at

-(void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection, it can be removed from the dictionary.

// This variable must be able to be referenced from - (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
NSMutableDictionary *connDictGET = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
//...//

// You can use any object that can be referenced from - (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
[connDictGET setObject:anyObjectThatCanBeReferencedFrom forKey:[aConnectionInstanceJustInitiated description]];
//...//

// At the delegate method, evaluate if the passed connection is the specific one which needs to be handled differently
if ([[connDictGET objectForKey:[connection description]] isEqual:anyObjectThatCanBeReferencedFrom]) {
// Do specific work for connection //

}
//...//

// When the connection is no longer needed, use (NSString *)description as key to remove object
[connDictGET removeObjectForKey:[connection description]];

One approach I've taken is to not use the same object as the delegate for each connection. Instead, I create a new instance of my parsing class for each connection that is fired off and set the delegate to that instance.

Managing multiple asynchronous NSURLConnection connections

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