Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-05 Thread Jonathan Taylor
On 4 Sep 2013, at 16:46, Marcel Weiher wrote: Unless there is some dire reason not to do this, I would make a copy on the main thread every time the UI changes, and stash that copy somewhere the worker thread can access it easily. That's a really good plan, I realised that last night. I

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-05 Thread Marcel Weiher
On Sep 3, 2013, at 12:52 , Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: I have an objective c object which contains a number of properties that serve as parameters for an algorithm. They are bound to UI elements. I would like to take a snapshot copy of the object that will be used

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-04 Thread Jonathan Taylor
Thanks to everyone who has chimed in on this one - you've all been really helpful. Looks like some conclusions are emerging; some selected replies below. On 3 Sep 2013, at 20:21, Tom Davie tom.da...@gmail.com wrote: Remove the mutation methods. Make your object immutable, the referential

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-04 Thread Marcel Weiher
On Sep 4, 2013, at 10:56 , Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: On 3 Sep 2013, at 19:49, Marcel Weiher marcel.wei...@gmail.com wrote: Unless there is some dire reason not to do this, I would make a copy on the main thread every time the UI changes, and stash that copy

Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jonathan Taylor
This feels like it should be a very basic question, but it's not one I've managed to find an answer to - can somebody here advise? I have an objective c object which contains a number of properties that serve as parameters for an algorithm. They are bound to UI elements. I would like to take a

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Graham Cox
On 03/09/2013, at 12:52 PM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: Is there any way, then, that I can take a copy in a threadsafe manner? If necessary I can do the copy on the main thread, but I would prefer not to have to do that for timing reasons. Any suggestions? Since

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jonathan Taylor
Ah, that's a good point about implementing -copy myself. However, how would @synchronized(self){…..} help there? Surely all that would do is prevent multiple threads from calling 'copy' simultaneously - which as far as I am aware isn't something I should be worried about. My understanding is

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Lasse Jansen
Since the implementation of -copy is up to you, you could just put @synchronized(self){…..} around the code in that method. That implements a lock which should make the copy thread-safe. No, it wouldn't. It would only ensure that two calls to copy are executed sequentially. You would need

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Dave
Hi, Basically you are trying to protect the values of an object while you are copying. If this is the case, then wherever you access these properties you will be need to use a lock based on the object you are copying. In order to do this, you need to lock the whole object whenever you are

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Diederik Meijer | Ten Horses
Is it possible to reverse the issue? Keep the original object (living on the main thread) untouched, make a copy for algorithm processing as an async task, then, when done, update the original object from the copy that may have been changed during async processing? Or will that cause the exact

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Graham Cox
On 03/09/2013, at 1:23 PM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: Ah, that's a good point about implementing -copy myself. However, how would @synchronized(self){…..} help there? Surely all that would do is prevent multiple threads from calling 'copy' simultaneously - which

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Markus Spoettl
On 9/3/13 1:23 PM, Jonathan Taylor wrote: - True thread safety would require a copy that represents an instantaneous snapshot of the state of the entire object, i.e. copy not taken while object is being updated. Actually, I suspect this last condition is not a problem for my specific case,

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Dave
Opps! Typeo, should read: [myCurrentObject setValuesFromObject: myNewObject]; Dave On 3 Sep 2013, at 11:52, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: This feels like it should be a very basic question, but it's not one I've managed to find an answer to - can somebody here

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jonathan Taylor
Is it possible to reverse the issue? Keep the original object (living on the main thread) untouched, make a copy for algorithm processing as an async task, then, when done, update the original object from the copy that may have been changed during async processing? Or will that cause the

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Dave
On 3 Sep 2013, at 13:39, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: Is it possible to reverse the issue? Keep the original object (living on the main thread) untouched, make a copy for algorithm processing as an async task, then, when done, update the original object from the copy

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Robert Vojta
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: The primary instance of the object (call it MyParameters) is bound to UI elements. Changes to the UI will change the values of its properties (int/bool/double). These changes will take place on the main

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jonathan Taylor
All sounds nice, except for the fact that the parameters are being changed behind the scenes via the binding system. So I think I may have to implement locking on every (explicitly implemented) get/set method. That was what I had been rather hoping to avoid, but it sounds from what people are

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Robert Vojta
Then this should be enough ... - (MyParameters *)copyParameters { __block MyParameters *parameters; dispatch_sync( dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ parameters = [myObjectHoldingParameters.parameters copy]; }); return parameters; } ... if all your parameters object properties

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jonathan Taylor
Ah. In my original email I didn't explain *why* it is that ideally I would like to make the copy on a thread other than the main thread. The algorithm is doing real-time video processing, and I very much want to avoid holding up anything in that code path by synchronizing with the main queue.

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread David Duncan
On Sep 3, 2013, at 5:39 AM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: I would like to be able to take a copy of MyParameters from a thread that is not the main thread Why? Sure, you have a thread doing real-time video processing, but how expensive can it be to make a copy and

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jeff Kelley
You could use a dedicated dispatch queue for all property access and use dispatch barriers to restrict access to the queue for writes, while still allowing simultaneous reads. In -copy: - (id)copy { __block __typeof(self) copy; dispatch_async(self.propertyQueue, ^{ copy = [[[self class] alloc]

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Kyle Sluder
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013, at 11:32 AM, Jeff Kelley wrote: Ken is, of course, correct. This is what I get for writing it in my mail client. You’ll want to use dispatch_sync() for reads and dispatch_barrier_async() for writes. …thus defeating the purpose of moving the copy to another thread.

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Tom Davie
What I’m surprised no on has mentioned here is the trivial… Remove the mutation methods. Make your object immutable, the referential transparency will give you “free” parallelism. If you want a mutated version of the object, create a new object. Tom Davie

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Kyle Sluder
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013, at 07:29 AM, David Duncan wrote: On Sep 3, 2013, at 5:39 AM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: I would like to be able to take a copy of MyParameters from a thread that is not the main thread Why? Sure, you have a thread doing real-time video

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Ken Thomases
On Sep 3, 2013, at 9:26 AM, Jeff Kelley wrote: You could use a dedicated dispatch queue for all property access and use dispatch barriers to restrict access to the queue for writes, while still allowing simultaneous reads. In -copy: - (id)copy { __block __typeof(self) copy;

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jeff Kelley
Ken is, of course, correct. This is what I get for writing it in my mail client. You’ll want to use dispatch_sync() for reads and dispatch_barrier_async() for writes. Jeff Kelley On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 2:30 PM, Ken Thomases k...@codeweavers.com wrote: On Sep 3, 2013, at 9:26 AM, Jeff Kelley

Re: Threadsafe copy of objective c object

2013-09-03 Thread Jens Alfke
On Sep 3, 2013, at 3:52 AM, Jonathan Taylor jonathan.tay...@glasgow.ac.uk wrote: The complication is in ensuring this is threadsafe: ideally I would like to make the copy on a thread other than the main thread. My understanding is that properties themselves, even when designated atomic,