Question

I’m looking for an efficient way of inserting records into SQL server for my C#/MVC application. Anyone know what the best method would be?

Normally I’ve just done a while loop and insert statement within, but then again I’ve not had quite so many records to deal with. I need to insert around half a million, and at 300 rows a minute with the while loop, I’ll be here all day!

What I’m doing is looping through a large holding table, and using it’s rows to create records in a different table. I’ve set up some functions for lookup data which is necessary for the new table, and this is no doubt adding to the drain.

So here is the query I have. Extremely inefficient for large amounts of data!

Declare @HoldingID int
Set @HoldingID = (Select min(HoldingID) From HoldingTable)

While @JourneyHoldingID IS NOT NULL
Begin
    Insert Into Journeys (DepartureID, ArrivalID, ProviderID, JourneyNumber, Active)
    Select 
        dbo.GetHubIDFromName(StartHubName), 
        dbo.GetHubIDFromName(EndHubName), 
        dbo.GetBusIDFromName(CompanyName), 
        JourneyNo, 1
    From Holding
    Where HoldingID = @HoldingID

    Set @HoldingID = (Select MIN(HoldingID) From Holding Where HoldingID > @HoldingID)
End

I’ve heard about set-based approaches – is there anything that might work for the above problem?

Answer 1

This should be exactly what you are doing now.

Insert Into Journeys(DepartureID, ArrivalID, ProviderID, JourneyNumber, Active)
Select 
    dbo.GetHubIDFromName(StartHubName), 
    dbo.GetHubIDFromName(EndHubName), 
    dbo.GetBusIDFromName(CompanyName), 
    JourneyNo, 1
From Holding
ORDER BY HoldingID ASC