Running a socket stream in a thread

Question

I have an application that opens a connection with 2 sockets (in and out) and I want to have them working in a thread.

The reason that I want them to be in a separate thread is that I don't want my application to freeze when I receive data, and this can happen anytime as long as the application is running.

Currently I have a class that handle also network communication and I run this class in an NSOperation, I'm not sure if it's the best solution.

I'm not very familiar with threading so guys if you could give me some help I would be very grateful.

Thanks

Answer 1

First, you should know that you can use the same socket to send and receive data — they're generally bi-directional. You should be able to share a reference to the same socket among multiple threads of execution.

Second, unless you'll be receiving large amounts of data and have experienced performance issues with your UI, I would delay optimizing for it. (Don't get me wrong, this is a good consideration, but premature optimization is the root of all evil, and simpler is generally better if it performs adequately.)

Third, NSOperation objects are "single-shot", meaning that once the main method completes, the operation task cannot be used again. This may or may not be conducive to your networking model. You might also look at NSThread. The fact that you already have the functionality "factored out" bodes well for your design, whatever turns out to be best.

Lastly, threading is a complex topic, but a good place to start (especially for Objective-C) is Apple's Threading Programming Guide.