Display progress in a long loop in Unity3d -

i'm building space game, populated thousands of star systems. right now, there function generates these thousands of systems. takes 5-10 seconds generate, , have simple progress bar updating user in progress.

after searching i've decided use coroutine, there little problem: when call function generate star systems, code called function keeps on going, reporting 0 stars (because haven't been generated yet).

i have feeling coroutines not answer me. basically, looking way simulate application.doevents update gui.

here sample of code:

// start generating thousands of systems startcoroutine(galacticmap.generaterandomgalaxy()); // after universe generated... game.mygalaxy.starsystems = galacticmap.mygalaxy.starsystems; // report number of systems print(string.format("generated {0} systems", game.mygalaxy.starsystems.count)); 

in galacticmap.generaterandomgalaxy() yielding yield return new waitforseconds(0.1f); however, effect not looking for: execution goes right through print statement while generation still on going.

so how do this?

edit 1:

i've cooked sample code illustrate issue.

the caller code:

debug.log ("start generating"); startcoroutine(generatemegalaxy()); debug.log ("finish generating"); 

the code call:

public static ienumerator  generatemegalaxy () {     debug.log ("generatemegalaxy start");     int numberofstars = 1000;      (int i=0;i<=numberofstars;i++)     {         // generate galaxy          // display progress bar on screen         debug.monitor(string.format("{0}% completed", ((i*100)/numberofstars)),2);         yield return new waitforseconds(0.001f);     }     debug.log ("generatemegalaxy end"); } 

in code above, debug.log displays string on screen, on new line can read previous logged strings of whatever. debug code execution. debug.monitor has fixed location on screen , overwrite previous string. display progress percentage. see after running code is:

start generating generatemegalaxy start finish generating generatemegalaxy end 

what want see is:

start generating generatemegalaxy start generatemegalaxy end finish generating 

... , progress update happening in between:

generatemegalaxy start finish generating 

i think misunderstanding how unity coroutines work. yield return new waitforseconds(0.1f) saying "go other stuff , come me after 0.1 second". naturally unity go ahead , other stuff, including print statement.

what want along lines of following pattern:

ienumerator generaterandomgalaxy() {     int numsystems = 5000; // many systems want generate     foreach(int = 0; < numsystems; i++)      {         // insert code here generates system          // insert code here updates progress bar          yield return null;     }     // put logic prints out final number of systems generated here } 

what generate system, update status bar, , -- yield return null statement -- tell unity take on (so other stuff, including rendering updated progress bar) , come , continue loop possible.

finally, print statement happens after loop finished, intend.