Is datareader quicker than dataset when populating a datatable?

Question

Which would be quicker.

1) Looping a datareader and creating a custom rows and columns based populated datatable

2) Or creating a dataAdapter object and just (.Fill)ing a datatable.

Does the performance of a datareader still hold true upon dynamic creation of a datatable?

Answer 1

The DataAdapter uses a DataReader under the hood so your experience would likely be the same.

The benefit of the DataAdapter is you cut out a lot of code that would need maintenance.

This debate is a bit of a religious issue so definitely look around and decide what works best for your situation:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/memilavi/archive/2008/02/18/datareader-vs-dataset-the-real-question.aspx
• http://xcskiwinn.org/community/blogs/panmanphil/archive/2004/09/21/281.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/joelevi/archive/2008/02/12/asp-net-datareader-vs-dataset.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/dreilly/archive/2003/09/27/29411.aspx

Answer 2

Your option #1 would be slower. However, there's a better way to convert a datareader to a datatable than adding custom rows by hand:

DataTable dt = new DataTable();

using (SqlConnection conn = GetOpenSqlConnection())
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("SQL Query here", conn)
using (IDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader())
{
    dt.Load(rdr);
}

I can't comment on the difference between this and using .Fill().