IPhone application freezes when parsing XML

Question

My application freezes whenever I parse an XML feed.

I tried this instead:

[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(parseXML) toTarget:self withObject:nil];

which causes:

-(void) parseXML {
    NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
    [self parseXMLFileAtURL:path];
    [pool drain]; 
}

but my application became rather unstable as a result ... iPhone Simulator just crashed without warning an error.

Answer 1

Instead of calling:

[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(parseXML) toTarget:self withObject:nil];

you should call:

[self performSelectorInBackground:@selector(parseXML) withObject:nil]

Your user interface freezes because you are doing lengthy operations in the user interface thread.