Question

I am writing a program that searches and copies mp3-files to a specified directory.

Currently I am using a List that is filled with all the mp3s in a directory (which takes – not surprisingly – a very long time.) Then I use taglib-sharp to compare the ID3Tags with the artist and title entered. If they match I copy the file.

Since this is my first program and I am very new to programming I figure there must be a better/more efficient way to do this. Does anybody have a suggestion on what I could try?

Edit: I forgot to add an important detail: I want to be able to specify what directories should be searched every time I start a search (the directory to be searched will be specified in the program itself). So storing all the files in a database or something similar isn’t really an option (unless there is a way to do this every time which is still efficient). I am basically looking for the best way to search through all the files in a directory where the files are indexed every time. (I am aware that this is probably not a good idea but I’d like to do it that way. If there is no real way to do this I’ll have to reconsider but for now I’d like to do it like that.)

Answer 1

Use an database (simple binary serialized file or an embedded database like RavenDb) to cache all files. And query that cache instead.

Also store modified time for each folder in the database. Compare the time in the database with the time on the folder each time you start your application (and sync changed folders).

That ought to give you much better performance. Threading will not really help searching folders since it’s the disk IO that takes time, not your application.