Which is faster to read from, XML file or text file?

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I don't care how fast it will take to make it, but I want to know which is faster to be read from.

For example I am reading in points from a file and put into an array, which would be faster? Which class would read that particular data fast?

The importance of how fast it needs to be is not a problem. It is just for my own theoretical knowledge.

Posted 19-Sep-11 19:23pm

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Prerak Patel 20-Sep-11 1:25am

Depends on what data you have.

Philippe Mori 20-Sep-11 19:02pm

Except if you have a very large number of points (a few millions), then the actual reading should not be an issue if you read the data sequentially once.

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Mehdi Gholam · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19T19:29:00

Solution 1

XML and text files are both text files.

The speed of reading them is the same.

What changes the overall time to finish is how you intend to process and store in memory the data read.

Obviously XML has more structure to process than a plain text file. So for pure bulk data transfer use CSV text files.

Posted 19-Sep-11 19:29pm

Mehdi Gholam

Comments

Uday P.Singh 20-Sep-11 1:30am

Agree 5!

TorstenH. 20-Sep-11 2:11am

+5!

And to add in: XML is a common file format on which data is dispatched by a lot of systems.
It's useless to send data when it has no structure!