Question

Given the following piece of code:

using(var data = new SomeDataContext(ConnectionString)) {   data.ObjectTrackingEnabled = false;    foreach(Something in data.Somethings)      someList.Add(something.SomeProperty); } 

Is it worth it setting object tracking to false? I know it is just one line of code, but it kind of bugs me having to write it all the time. But I have heard that you can have some performance gain by turning it of when you don’t need it. And since I just need to quickly read out some data, I don’t need the tracking. But is it worth it in such a small piece of code? What is your opinion? Should I use it? Should I not? Why?

Answer 1

If the context is going to be disposed immediately, it probably isn’t worth it – but here’s a few thoughts:

• perhaps write a ‘fluent’ extension method for data-contexts (below)
• make it the default, by adding a partial OnCreated method that does it

Fluent extension example:

public static class DataContextExt {     public static T NoTracking<T>(this T ctx)         where T : DataContext     {         ctx.ObjectTrackingEnabled = false;         return ctx;     }     } 

Then you can use:

using(var data = new SomeDataContext(ConnectionString).NoTracking()) {...} 

Partial method example:

namespace MyData {     partial class MyDataContext {         partial void OnCreated() {             this.ObjectTrackingEnabled = false;         }     } }