[SOLVED] Fire a NSThread every 'X' seconds

Fire a NSThread every 'X' seconds

I'm having an issue with NSThread which I don't understand very well..

How to well create a NSThread:

- (id)initWithTarget:(id)target selector:(SEL)selector object:(id)argument

then...

I'm a bit confuse with NSThread and all of his methods.

I want to create a NSThread and fire it every 5 minutes (and of course keep using my applications without latence :)

Solution

Or use a dispatch source with GCD since Apple is recommending migrating away from NSThread use.

Assuming the following ivar exists:

dispatch_source_t _timer;

then, for example:

dispatch_queue_t backgroundQueue = dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0);
_timer = dispatch_source_create(DISPATCH_SOURCE_TYPE_TIMER, 0, 0, backgroundQueue);
dispatch_source_set_timer(_timer, DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, 2 * NSEC_PER_SEC, 0.05 * NSEC_PER_SEC);
dispatch_source_set_event_handler(_timer, ^{
    NSLog(@"periodic task");
});
dispatch_resume(_timer);

which will fire a small task on a background queue every 2 seconds with a small leeway.