Reputation: 485
I know this type of question has been asked 1e7 times but I have come across a specific issue that I don't think has been covered/is blatantly obvious but I am too novice to fix it on my own.
I have the following code snippet within my cellForRowAt
method in a TableViewController
:
let currentDictionary = parser.parsedData[indexPath.row] as Dictionary<String,String>
let urlString = currentDictionary["media:content"]
if urlString != nil {
let url = NSURL(string: urlString!)
DispatchQueue.global().async {
let data = try? Data(contentsOf: url! as URL) //make sure your image in this url does exist, otherwise unwrap in a if let check / try-catch
DispatchQueue.main.async {
cell.thumbnailImageView.image = UIImage(data: data!)
}
}
}
Which executes fine, downloads the images and assigns them to the UIImageView
of each tableViewCell
.
There is a finite delay when scrolling the table as the images are downloaded 'on the fly' so to speak.
What I want to do is pre-download all these images and save them in a data structure so they are fetched from URL's less frequently.
I have tried the following implementation:
var thumbnail = UIImage()
for item in parser.parsedData {
let currentDictionary = item as Dictionary<String,String>
let title = currentDictionary["title"]
let link = currentDictionary["link"]
let urlString = currentDictionary["media:content"]
let url = NSURL(string: urlString!)
if urlString != nil {
let url = NSURL(string: urlString!)
DispatchQueue.global().async {
let data = try? Data(contentsOf: url! as URL)
DispatchQueue.main.sync {
thumbnail = UIImage(data: data!)!
}
}
}
var newsArticle: News!
newsArticle = News(title: title!, link: link!, thumbnail: thumbnail)
news.append(newsArticle)
Where news is my data structure. This code also executes fine, however each thumbnail is a 0x0 sized image, size {0, 0} orientation 0 scale 1.000000, according to the console output.
Does anyone have any ideas how to download these images but not immediately assign them to a UIImageView
, rather store them for later use?
Upvotes: 0
Views: 237
Reputation: 10219
The problem is that you create your newsArticle
before the global dispatch queue even started to process your url
. Therefore, thumbnail
is still the empty UIImage()
created in the very first line.
You'll have to create the thumbnail inside the inner dispatch closure, like:
for item in parser.parsedData {
guard let currentDictionary = item as? Dictionary<String,String> else { continue /* or some error handling */ }
guard let title = currentDictionary["title"] else { continue /* or some error handling */ }
guard let link = currentDictionary["link"] else { continue /* or some error handling */ }
guard let urlString = currentDictionary["media:content"] else { continue /* or some error handling */ }
guard let url = URL(string: urlString) else { continue /* or some error handling */ }
DispatchQueue.global().async {
if let data = try? Data(contentsOf: url) {
DispatchQueue.main.sync {
if let thumbnail = UIImage(data: data) {
let newsArticle = News(title: title, link: link, thumbnail: thumbnail)
news.append(newsArticle)
}
}
}
}
}
By the way, your very first code (cellForRow...
) is also broken: You must not reference the cell inside the dispatch closure:
DispatchQueue.main.async {
// Never do this
cell.thumbnailImageView.image = UIImage(data: data!)
}
Instead, reference the IndexPath
, retrieve the cell inside the clousure, and go on with that cell. But as you already mentioned, there are many many entries on stackoverflow regarding this issue.
Upvotes: 1