Ini file VS Text File

[jondolar]

I'm new to Autoit3 and experimenting.

I wanted to compare the Write speed of both an Ini file and a plain text file

the result for an ini file with 1,000 elements is 15 sec with the following code:

$i = 0
While $i <= 1000
      IniWrite("D:\Autoit3\Serge\MYINI.ini", $i, $i, $i)
      $i = $i + 1
Wend

To write 100,000 elements to a plain text file took only a few seconds with:

$i = 0
$handle =  FileOpen("D:\autoit3\Serge\Sergetxt.txt", 1 )
while $i <= 100000
        FileWriteLine($handle, $i & " The quick Brown Fox Jumped over the fence")
        $i = $i + 1
wend
FileClose($handle)

Any Idea why writing to an ini file is so slow?

Regards

Serge

[/dev/null]

Any Idea why writing to an ini file is so slow?

well, IniWrite uses the windows API function WritePrivateProfileString.

Short story: I guess we'll have to ask Microsoft here

Longer story: To write a single line to a file is pretty fast. Writing to an ini file, requires to parse that file and figure out if the requested section is part of the file, etc., etc. AND adding some text in the middle of the INI file will allways end up in reading the whole file, changing things in memory and writing the whole "new" content back to disk.

Just curious: Why would you want to write massive data into an INI file??

Cheers

Kurt

Edited September 8, 2005 by /dev/null

[jondolar]

well, IniWrite uses the windows API function WritePrivateProfileString.

Short story: I guess we'll  have to ask Microsoft here 

Longer story: To write a single line to a file is pretty fast. Writing to an ini file, requires to parse that file and figure out if the requested section is part of the file, etc., etc. AND adding some text in the middle of the INI file will allways end up in reading the whole file, changing things in memory and writing the whole "new" content back to disk.

Just curious: Why would you want to write massive data into an INI file??

Cheers

Kurt

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Kurt

Poor's man database ;o) Not adequeate I guess.

[jondolar]

Hi Kurt

Poor's man database ;o) Not adequeate I guess.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi

I actually made an interesting small discovery.

Using FileWriteLine to simulate an INI file like this:

$i = 0
$handle =  FileOpen("D:\autoit3\Serge\SergeINI.txt", 1 ); Write a simulated INI file
while $i <= 10000
        FileWriteLine($handle, "[" & $i & "]")
        FileWriteLine($handle, $i & "=" & $i)
        $i = $i + 1
wend
FileClose($handle)

You write at hi speed txt file and can still use IniReadSection for example:

$i = 0
$var = IniReadSection("D:\Autoit3\Serge\SergeINI.txt", "4"); Read ini/txt file
If @error Then  
    MsgBox(4096, "", "Error occured, probably no INI file.")
Else
    For $i = 1 To $var[0][0]
        MsgBox(4096, "", "Key: " & $var[$i][0] & @CRLF & "Value: " & $var[$i][1])
    Next
EndIf

Interesting

Serge

[falconv]

That *is* a neat discovery. I'll keep that in mind when creating new db's wi/ .ini files. However, that will only work efficiently if you're writing the data new. If you want to change the data in the .ini file, that's a different story. Although perhaps if someone wanted to spend the time (I don't, I'm happy with IniWrite) I suppose you could make a Function to simulate it, so it will search the file for the entry and replace it?

[jondolar]

That *is* a neat discovery.  I'll keep that in mind when creating new db's wi/ .ini files.  However, that will only work efficiently if you're writing the data new.  If you want to change the data in the .ini file, that's a different story.  Although perhaps if someone wanted to spend the time (I don't, I'm happy with IniWrite) I suppose you could make a Function to simulate it, so it will search the file for the entry and replace it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Since Writing/Reading to/from a text file is so fast, I suppose you could read the entire file to an array, do your search/replace there then write the entire pseudo ini file back to disk and still use IniReadSection to fetch a specific "Record" and IniDelete to delete a specific "record". For a veryvery small file, pure ini is ok but when you go past 100 entries, it is extremely slow (1000 entries = 15 sec)

Regards

Serge

[erifash]

That *is* a neat discovery.  I'll keep that in mind when creating new db's wi/ .ini files.  However, that will only work efficiently if you're writing the data new.  If you want to change the data in the .ini file, that's a different story.  Although perhaps if someone wanted to spend the time (I don't, I'm happy with IniWrite) I suppose you could make a Function to simulate it, so it will search the file for the entry and replace it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yup, I made something almost exactly like that a while ago. I abandoned it for storing information in meta tags (easier to parse). Here's the link:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14157

[Gigglestick]

Yup, I made something almost exactly like that a while ago. I abandoned it for storing information in meta tags (easier to parse). Here's the link:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14157

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't know about you, jondolar, but that's exactly what I was looking for!

http://www.autoitscript.com/fileman/users/public/c0deWorm/Three_Chipmonks.gif

Edited September 10, 2005 by c0deWorm

[jondolar]

Yup, I made something almost exactly like that a while ago. I abandoned it for storing information in meta tags (easier to parse). Here's the link:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14157

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Meta tags?... be interested to have info on that.

Serge