GCD to perform task in main thread

objective-c grand-central-dispatch
Egil picture Egil · Apr 14, 2011 · Viewed 126.9k times · Source

I have a callback which might come from any thread. When I get this callback, then I would like to perform a certain task on the main thread.

Do I need to check whether I already am on the main thread - or is there any penalty by not performing this check befora calling the code below?

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
   // do work here
});

Answer

user557219 picture user557219 · Apr 14, 2011

No, you do not need to check whether you’re already on the main thread. By dispatching the block to the main queue, you’re just scheduling the block to be executed serially on the main thread, which happens when the corresponding run loop is run.

If you already are on the main thread, the behaviour is the same: the block is scheduled, and executed when the run loop of the main thread is run.

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