Question

I have 7-8 xml files. Each one is approximately 50 MB in size. What is the best way to merge files programmatically in C# without getting System.OutOfMemory Exception? So far I have tried reading each file in a StringBuilder and than putting it in an array of string builder but I still get system.outofmemoery exception. Any help?? Thank you, -Nimesh

Answer 1

Personally, when I have to deal with XML files (forced by threat of physical violence usually), I do this:

1. Load each file into a .NET DataSet via DataSet.ReadXML()
2. Combine the information (via DataSet queries).
3. Write out the combined DataSet to XML via DataSet.WriteXML()

Then I aggressively delete the orginal XML file and wipe the sectors where it existed on the disk to remove the taint. 🙂