Your code won't work because URLSessionDownloadTask runs asynchronously. Thus the BlockOperation completes before the download is done and therefore while the operations fire off sequentially, the download tasks will continue asynchronously and in parallel.
While there are work-arounds one can contemplate (e.g., recursive patterns initiating one request after the prior one finishes, non-zero semaphore pattern on background thread, etc.), the elegant solution is one of the proven asynchronous frameworks. Historically if you wanted to control the degree of concurrency of a series of asynchronous tasks, we would reach for an asynchronous Operation subclass. Nowadays, in iOS 13 and later, we might consider Combine. (There are other third-party asynchronous programming frameworks, but I will restrict myself to Apple provided approaches.)
Operation
To address this, you can wrap the requests in asynchronous Operation subclass. See Configuring Operations for Concurrent Execution in the Concurrency Programming Guide for more information.
But before I illustrate how to do this in your situation (the delegate-based URLSession), let me first show you the simpler solution when using the completion handler rendition. We'll later build upon this for your more complicated question. So, in Swift 3 and later:
class DownloadOperation : AsynchronousOperation {
var task: URLSessionTask!
init(session: URLSession, url: URL) {
super.init()
task = session.downloadTask(with: url) { temporaryURL, response, error in
defer { self.finish() }
guard
let httpResponse = response as? HTTPURLResponse,
200..<300 ~= httpResponse.statusCode
else {
// handle invalid return codes however you'd like
return
}
guard let temporaryURL = temporaryURL, error == nil else {
print(error ?? "Unknown error")
return
}
do {
let manager = FileManager.default
let destinationURL = try manager.url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: false)
.appendingPathComponent(url.lastPathComponent)
try? manager.removeItem(at: destinationURL) // remove the old one, if any
try manager.moveItem(at: temporaryURL, to: destinationURL) // move new one there
} catch let moveError {
print("(moveError)")
}
}
}
override func cancel() {
task.cancel()
super.cancel()
}
override func main() {
task.resume()
}
}
Where
/// Asynchronous operation base class
///
/// This is abstract to class emits all of the necessary KVO notifications of `isFinished`
/// and `isExecuting` for a concurrent `Operation` subclass. You can subclass this and
/// implement asynchronous operations. All you must do is:
///
/// - override `main()` with the tasks that initiate the asynchronous task;
///
/// - call `completeOperation()` function when the asynchronous task is done;
///
/// - optionally, periodically check `self.cancelled` status, performing any clean-up
/// necessary and then ensuring that `finish()` is called; or
/// override `cancel` method, calling `super.cancel()` and then cleaning-up
/// and ensuring `finish()` is called.
class AsynchronousOperation: Operation {
/// State for this operation.
@objc private enum OperationState: Int {
case ready
case executing
case finished
}
/// Concurrent queue for synchronizing access to `state`.
private let stateQueue = DispatchQueue(label: Bundle.main.bundleIdentifier! + ".rw.state", attributes: .concurrent)
/// Private backing stored property for `state`.
private var rawState: OperationState = .ready
/// The state of the operation
@objc private dynamic var state: OperationState {
get { return stateQueue.sync { rawState } }
set { stateQueue.sync(flags: .barrier) { rawState = newValue } }
}
// MARK: - Various `Operation` properties
open override var isReady: Bool { return state == .ready && super.isReady }
public final override var isExecuting: Bool { return state == .executing }
public final override var isFinished: Bool { return state == .finished }
// KVO for dependent properties
open override class func keyPathsForValuesAffectingValue(forKey key: String) -> Set<String> {
if ["isReady", "isFinished", "isExecuting"].contains(key) {
return [#keyPath(state)]
}
return super.keyPathsForValuesAffectingValue(forKey: key)
}
// Start
public final override func start() {
if isCancelled {
finish()
return
}
state = .executing
main()
}
/// Subclasses must implement this to perform their work and they must not call `super`. The default implementation of this function throws an exception.
open override func main() {
fatalError("Subclasses must implement `main`.")
}
/// Call this function to finish an operation that is currently executing
public final func finish() {
if !isFinished { state = .finished }
}
}
Then you can do:
for url in urls {
queue.addOperation(DownloadOperation(session: session, url: url))
}
So that's one very easy way to wrap asynchronous URLSession/NSURLSession requests in asynchronous Operation/NSOperation subclass. More generally, this is a useful pattern, using AsynchronousOperation to wrap up some asynchronous task in an Operation/NSOperation object.
Unfortunately, in your question, you wanted to use delegate-based URLSession/NSURLSession so you could monitor the progress of the downloads. This is more complicated.
This is because the "task complete" NSURLSession delegate methods are called at the session object's delegate. This is an infuriating design feature of NSURLSession (but Apple did it to simplify background sessions, which isn't relevant here, but we're stuck with that design limitation).
But we have to asynchronously complete the operations as the tasks finish. So we need some way for the session to figure out which operation to complete when didCompleteWithError is called. Now you could have each operation have its own NSURLSession object, but it turns out that this is pretty inefficient.
So, to handle that, I maintain a dictionary, keyed by the task's taskIdentifier, which identifies the appropriate operation. That way, when the download finishes, you can "complete" the correct asynchronous operation. Thus:
/// Manager of asynchronous download `Operation` objects
class DownloadManager: NSObject {
/// Dictionary of operations, keyed by the `taskIdentifier` of the `URLSessionTask`
fileprivate var operations = [Int: DownloadOperation]()
/// Serial OperationQueue for downloads
private let queue: OperationQueue = {
let _queue = OperationQueue()
_queue.name = "download"
_queue.maxConcurrentOperationCount = 1 // I'd usually use values like 3 or 4 for performance reasons, but OP asked about downloading one at a time
return _queue
}()
/// Delegate-based `URLSession` for DownloadManager
lazy var session: URLSession = {
let configuration = URLSessionConfiguration.default
return URLSession(configuration: configuration, delegate: self, delegateQueue: nil)
}()
/// Add download
///
/// - parameter URL: The URL of the file to be downloaded
///
/// - returns: The DownloadOperation of the operation that was queued
@discardableResult
func queueDownload(_ url: URL) -> DownloadOperation {
let operation = DownloadOperation(session: session, url: url)
operations[operation.task.taskIdentifier] = operation
queue.addOperation(operation)
return operation
}
/// Cancel all queued operations
func cancelAll() {
queue.cancelAllOperations()
}
}
// MARK: URLSessionDownloadDelegate methods
extension DownloadManager: URLSessionDownloadDelegate {
func urlSession(_ session: URLSession, downloadTask: URLSessionDownloadTask, didFinishDownloadingTo location: URL) {
operations[downloadTask.taskIdentifier]?.urlSession(session, downloadTask: downloadTask, didFinishDownloadingTo: location)
}
func urlSession(_ session: URLSession, downloadTask: URLSessionDownloadTask, didWriteData bytesWritten: Int64, totalBytesWritten: Int64, totalBytesExpectedToWrite: Int64) {
operations[downloadTask.taskIdentifier]?.urlSession(session, downloadTask: downloadTask, didWriteData: bytesWritten, totalBytesWritten: totalBytesWritten, totalBytesExpectedToWrite: totalBytesExpectedToWrite)
}
}
// MARK: URLSessionTaskDelegate methods
extension DownloadManager: URLSessionTaskDelegate {
func urlSession(_ session: URLSession, task: URLSessionTask, didCompleteWithError error: Error?) {
let key = task.taskIdentifier
operations[key]?.urlSession(session, task: task, didCompleteWithError: error)
operations.removeValue(forKey: key)
}
}
/// Asynchronous Operation subclass for downloading
class DownloadOperation : AsynchronousOperation {
let task: URLSessionTask
init(session: URLSession, url: URL) {
task = session.downloadTask(with: url)
super.init()
}
override func cancel() {
task.cancel()
super.cancel()
}
override func main() {
task.resume()
}
}
// MARK: NSURLSessionDownloadDelegate methods
extension DownloadOperation: URLSessionDownloadDelegate {
func urlSession(_ session: URLSession, downloadTask: URLSessionDownloadTask, didFinishDownloadingTo location: URL) {
guard
let httpResponse = downloadTask.response as? HTTPURLResponse,
200..<300 ~= httpResponse.statusCode
else {
// handle invalid return codes however you'd like
return
}
do {
let manager = FileManager.default
let destinationURL = try manager
.url(for: .applicationSupportDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: true)
.appendingPathComponent(downloadTask.originalRequest!.url!.lastPathComponent
