c# - Writing huge amounts of text to a textbox

Question

I am writing a log of lots and lots of formatted text to a textbox in a .net windows form app.

It is slow once the data gets over a few megs. Since I am appending the string has to be reallocated every time right? I only need to set the value to the text box once, but in my code I am doing line+=data tens of thousands of times.

Is there a faster way to do this? Maybe a different control? Is there a linked list string type I can use?

Answer 1

StringBuilder will not help if the text box is added to incrementally, like log output for example.

But, if the above is true and if your updates are frequent enough it may behoove you to cache some number of updates and then append them in one step (rather than appending constantly). That would save you many string reallocations... and then StringBuilder would be helpful.

Notes:

1. Create a class-scoped StringBuilder member (_sb)
2. Start a timer (or use a counter)
3. Append text updates to _sb
4. When timer ticks or certain counter reached reset and append to text box
5. restart process from #1