Fastest way to parse XML files in C#?

Question

I have to load many XML files from internet. But for testing with better speed i downloaded all of them (more than 500 files) of the following format.

<player-profile>
  <personal-information>
    <id>36</id>
    <fullname>Adam Gilchrist</fullname>
    <majorteam>Australia</majorteam>
    <nickname>Gilchrist</nickname>
    <shortName>A Gilchrist</shortName>
    <dateofbirth>Nov 14, 1971</dateofbirth>
    <battingstyle>Left-hand bat</battingstyle>
    <bowlingstyle>Right-arm offbreak</bowlingstyle>
    <role>Wicket-Keeper</role>
    <teams-played-for>Western Australia, New South Wales, ICC World XI, Deccan Chargers, Australia</teams-played-for>
    <iplteam>Deccan Chargers</iplteam>
  </personal-information>
  <batting-statistics>
    <odi-stats>
      <matchtype>ODI</matchtype>
      <matches>287</matches>
      <innings>279</innings>
      <notouts>11</notouts>
      <runsscored>9619</runsscored>
      <highestscore>172</highestscore>
      <ballstaken>9922</ballstaken>
      <sixes>149</sixes>
      <fours>1000+</fours>
      <ducks>0</ducks>
      <fifties>55</fifties>
      <catches>417</catches>
      <stumpings>55</stumpings>
      <hundreds>16</hundreds>
      <strikerate>96.95</strikerate>
      <average>35.89</average>
    </odi-stats>
    <test-stats>
      .
      .
      .
    </test-stats>
    <t20-stats>
      .
      .
      .    
    </t20-stats>
    <ipl-stats>
      .
      .
      . 
    </ipl-stats>
  </batting-statistics>
  <bowling-statistics>
    <odi-stats>
      <matchtype>ODI</matchtype>
      <matches>378</matches>
      <ballsbowled>58</ballsbowled>
      <runsgiven>64</runsgiven>
      <wickets>3</wickets>
      <fourwicket>0</fourwicket>
      <fivewicket>0</fivewicket>
      <strikerate>19.33</strikerate>
      <economyrate>6.62</economyrate>
      <average>21.33</average>
    </odi-stats>
    <test-stats>
      .
      .
      . 
    </test-stats>
    <t20-stats>
      .
      .
      . 
    </t20-stats>
    <ipl-stats>
      .
      .
      . 
    </ipl-stats>
  </bowling-statistics>
</player-profile>

I am using

XmlNodeList list = _document.SelectNodes("/player-profile/batting-statistics/odi-stats");

And then loop this list with foreach as

foreach (XmlNode stats in list)
  {
     _btMatchType = GetInnerString(stats, "matchtype"); //it returns null string if node not availible
     .
     .
     .
     .
     _btAvg = Convert.ToDouble(stats["average"].InnerText);
  }

Even i am loading all files offline, parsing is very slow Is there any good faster way to parse them? Or is it problem with SQL? I am saving all extracted data from XML to database using DataSets, TableAdapters with insert command.

EDIT: Now for using XmlReader please give some code of XmlReader for above document. for now, i have done this

void Load(string url) 
{
    _reader = XmlReader.Create(url); 
    while (_reader.Read()) 
    { 
    } 
} 

Availible Methods for XmlReader are confusing. What i need is to get batting and bowling stats completly, batting and bowling stats are different, while odi,t2o,ipl etc are same inside bowling and batting.

Answer 1

You can use an XmlReader for forward only, fast reading.