Home/ Questions/Q 4033612
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-20T11:52:06+00:00

I have an SQL Server 2008 Database and am using C# 4.0 with Linq

  • 0

I have an SQL Server 2008 Database and am using C# 4.0 with Linq to Entities classes setup for Database interaction.

There exists a table which is indexed on a DateTime column where the value is the insertion time for the row. Several new rows are added a second (~20) and I need to effectively pull them into memory so that I can display them in a GUI. For simplicity lets just say I need to show the newest 50 rows in a list displayed via WPF.

I am concerned with the load polling may place on the database and the time it will take to process new results forcing me to become a slow consumer (Getting stuck behind a backlog). I was hoping for some advice on an approach. The ones I’m considering are;

  1. Poll the database in a tight loop (~1 result per query)
  2. Poll the database every second (~20 results per query)
  3. Create a database trigger for Inserts and tie it to an event in C# (SqlDependency)

I also have some options for access;

  1. Linq-to-Entities Table Select
  2. Raw SQL Query
  3. Linq-to-Entities Stored Procedure

If you could shed some light on the pros and cons or suggest another way entirely I’d love to hear it.

The process which adds the rows to the table is not under my control, I wish only to read the rows never to modify or add. The most important things are to not overload the SQL Server, keep the GUI up to date and responsive and use as little memory as possible… you know, the basics 😉

Thanks!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’m a little late to the party here, but if you have the feature on your edition of SQL Server 2008, there is a feature known as Change Data Capture that may help. Basically, you have to enable this feature both for the database and for the specific tables you need to capture. The built-in Change Data Capture process looks at the transaction log to determine what changes have been made to the table and records them in a pre-defined table structure. You can then query this table or pull results from the table into something friendlier (perhaps on another server altogether?). We are in the early stages of using this feature for a particular business requirement, and it seems to be working quite well thus far.

    You would have to test whether this feature would meet your needs as far as speed, but it may help maintenance since no triggers are required and the data capture does not tie up your database tables themselves.

    • 0