Question

Is there a simple way to store a simple table in memory on the server in ASP.NET that all users would share? Let’s say I have a simple chat program for instance and I only ever want to hold the last 100 records in memory (this isn’t a real application, just an example). Say I didn’t want to have an entire table in SQL dedicated to being this chat buffer with only 100 records. Is there some way I could create an in-memory data table and share it among connected users?

Answer 1

Use Cache (MSDN)

One instance of this class is created per application domain, and it
remains valid as long as the application domain remains active.
Information about an instance of this class is available through the
Cache property of the HttpContext object or the Cache property of the
Page object.

DataTable yourDataTable = new DataTable();
Cache["yourTable"] = yourDataTable;

//to access it
DataTable dt = Cache["yourTable"] as DataTable;