dispatch_sync()
does not return until the block has finished, which means that
applicationDidBecomeActive
does not return until runCriticalSection
has finished
execution.
This is probably not what you want, therefore you have to use dispatch_async()
(as already
stated in the other answer).
But you don't want another runCriticalSection
to start
if the previous one is still running. This can be achieved with a "counting semaphore"
(which are also a feature of GCD):
static dispatch_semaphore_t sema; // The semaphore
static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
// Initialize with count=1 (this is executed only once):
sema = dispatch_semaphore_create(1);
});
// Try to decrement the semaphore. This succeeds if the count is still 1
// (meaning that runCriticalSection is not executing), and fails if the
// current count is 0 (meaning that runCriticalSection is executing):
if (dispatch_semaphore_wait(sema, DISPATCH_TIME_NOW) == 0) {
// Success, semaphore count is now 0.
// Start asynchronous operation.
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{
//critical code
[self runCriticalSection];
// Increment the semaphore count (from 0 to 1), so that the next call
// to applicationDidBecomeActive will start a new operation:
dispatch_semaphore_signal(sema);
});
}