Improve large data import performance into SQLite with C# - c#

I am using C# to import a CSV with 6-8million rows.
My table looks like this:
CREATE TABLE [Data] ([ID] VARCHAR(100) NULL,[Raw] VARCHAR(200) NULL)
CREATE INDEX IDLookup ON Data(ID ASC)
I am using System.Data.SQLite to do the import.
Currently to do 6 millions rows its taking 2min 55 secs on a Windows 7 32bit, Core2Duo 2.8Ghz & 4GB RAM. That's not too bad but I was just wondering if anyone could see a way of importing it quicker.
Here is my code:
public class Data
{
public string IDData { get; set; }
public string RawData { get; set; }
}
string connectionString = #"Data Source=" + Path.GetFullPath(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "\\dbimport");
System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteConnection conn = new System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteConnection(connectionString);
conn.Open();
//Dropping and recreating the table seems to be the quickest way to get old data removed
System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteCommand command = new System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteCommand(conn);
command.CommandText = "DROP TABLE Data";
command.ExecuteNonQuery();
command.CommandText = #"CREATE TABLE [Data] ([ID] VARCHAR(100) NULL,[Raw] VARCHAR(200) NULL)";
command.ExecuteNonQuery();
command.CommandText = "CREATE INDEX IDLookup ON Data(ID ASC)";
command.ExecuteNonQuery();
string insertText = "INSERT INTO Data (ID,RAW) VALUES(#P0,#P1)";
SQLiteTransaction trans = conn.BeginTransaction();
command.Transaction = trans;
command.CommandText = insertText;
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();
using (CsvReader csv = new CsvReader(new StreamReader(#"C:\Data.txt"), false))
{
var f = csv.Select(x => new Data() { IDData = x[27], RawData = String.Join(",", x.Take(24)) });
foreach (var item in f)
{
command.Parameters.AddWithValue("#P0", item.IDData);
command.Parameters.AddWithValue("#P1", item.RawData);
command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
trans.Commit();
sw.Stop();
Debug.WriteLine(sw.Elapsed.Minutes + "Min(s) " + sw.Elapsed.Seconds + "Sec(s)");
conn.Close();

This is quite fast for 6 million records.
It seems that you are doing it the right way, some time ago I've read on sqlite.org that when inserting records you need to put these inserts inside transaction, if you don't do this your inserts will be limited to only 60 per second! That is because each insert will be treated as a separate transaction and each transaction must wait for the disk to rotate fully. You can read full explanation here:
http://www.sqlite.org/faq.html#q19
Actually, SQLite will easily do 50,000 or more INSERT statements per second on an average desktop computer. But it will only do a few dozen transactions per second. Transaction speed is limited by the rotational speed of your disk drive. A transaction normally requires two complete rotations of the disk platter, which on a 7200RPM disk drive limits you to about 60 transactions per second.
Comparing your time vs Average stated above: 50,000 per second => that should take 2m 00 sec. Which is only little faster than your time.
Transaction speed is limited by disk drive speed because (by default) SQLite actually waits until the data really is safely stored on the disk surface before the transaction is complete. That way, if you suddenly lose power or if your OS crashes, your data is still safe. For details, read about atomic commit in SQLite..
By default, each INSERT statement is its own transaction. But if you surround multiple INSERT statements with BEGIN...COMMIT then all the inserts are grouped into a single transaction. The time needed to commit the transaction is amortized over all the enclosed insert statements and so the time per insert statement is greatly reduced.
There is some hint in next paragraph that you could try to speed up the inserts:
Another option is to run PRAGMA synchronous=OFF. This command will cause SQLite to not wait on data to reach the disk surface, which will make write operations appear to be much faster. But if you lose power in the middle of a transaction, your database file might go corrupt.
I always thought that SQLite was designed for "simple things", 6 millions of records seems to me is a job for some real database server like MySQL.
Counting records in a table in SQLite with so many records can take long time, just for your information, instead of using SELECT COUNT(*), you can always use SELECT MAX(rowid) which is very fast, but is not so accurate if you were deleting records in that table.
EDIT.
As Mike Woodhouse stated, creating the index after you inserted the records should speed up the whole thing, that is a common advice in other databases, but can't say for sure how it works in SQLite.

One thing you might try is to create the index after the data has been inserted - typically it's much faster for databases to build indexes in a single operation than to update it after each insert (or transaction).
I can't say that it'll definitely work with SQLite, but since it only needs two lines to move it's worth trying.
I'm also wondering if a 6 million row transaction might be going too far - could you change the code to try different transaction sizes? Say 100, 1000, 10000, 100000? Is there a "sweet spot"?

You can gain quite some time when you bind your parameters in the following way:
...
string insertText = "INSERT INTO Data (ID,RAW) VALUES( ? , ? )"; // (1)
SQLiteTransaction trans = conn.BeginTransaction();
command.Transaction = trans;
command.CommandText = insertText;
//(2)------
SQLiteParameter p0 = new SQLiteParameter();
SQLiteParameter p1 = new SQLiteParameter();
command.Parameters.Add(p0);
command.Parameters.Add(p1);
//---------
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();
using (CsvReader csv = new CsvReader(new StreamReader(#"C:\Data.txt"), false))
{
var f = csv.Select(x => new Data() { IDData = x[27], RawData = String.Join(",", x.Take(24)) });
foreach (var item in f)
{
//(3)--------
p0.Value = item.IDData;
p1.Value = item.RawData;
//-----------
command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
trans.Commit();
...
Make the changes in sections 1, 2 and 3.
In this way parameter binding seems to be quite a bit faster.
Especially when you have a lot of parameters, this method can save quite some time.

I did a similar import, but I let my c# code just write the data to a csv first and then ran the sqlite import utility. I was able to import over 300million records in a matter of maybe 10 minutes this way.
Not sure if this can be done directly from c# or not though.

Related

Why does my SQL update for 20.000 records take over 5 minutes?

I have a piece of C# code, which updates two specific columns for ~1000x20 records in a database on the localhost. As I know (though I am really far from being a database expert), it should not take long, but it takes more than 5 minutes.
I tried SQL Transactions, with no luck. SqlBulkCopy seems a bit overkill, since it's a large table with dozens of columns, and I only have to update 1/2 column for a set of records, so I would like to keep it simple. Is there a better approach to improve efficiency?
The code itself:
public static bool UpdatePlayers(List<Match> matches)
{
using (var connection = new SqlConnection(Database.myConnectionString))
{
connection.Open();
SqlCommand cmd = connection.CreateCommand();
foreach (Match m in matches)
{
cmd.CommandText = "";
foreach (Player p in m.Players)
{
// Some player specific calculation, which takes almost no time.
p.Morale = SomeSpecificCalculationWhichMilisecond();
p.Condition = SomeSpecificCalculationWhichMilisecond();
cmd.CommandText += "UPDATE [Players] SET [Morale] = #morale, [Condition] = #condition WHERE [ID] = #id;";
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#morale", p.Morale);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#condition", p.Condition);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#id", p.ID);
}
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
return true;
}
Updating 20,000 records one at a time is a slow process, so taking over 5 minutes is to be expected.
From your query, I would suggest putting the data into a temp table, then joining the temp table to the update. This way it only has to scan the table to update once, and update all values.
Note: it could still take a while to do the update if you have indexes on the fields you are updating and/or there is a large amount of data in the table.
Example update query:
UPDATE P
SET [Morale] = TT.[Morale], [Condition] = TT.[Condition]
FROM [Players] AS P
INNER JOIN #TempTable AS TT ON TT.[ID] = P.[ID];
Populating the temp table
How to get the data into the temp table is up to you. I suspect you could use SqlBulkCopy but you might have to put it into an actual table, then delete the table once you are done.
If possible, I recommend putting a Primary Key on the ID column in the temp table. This may speed up the update process by making it faster to find the related ID in the temp table.
Minor improvements;
use a string builder for the command text
ensure your parameter names are actually unique
clear your parameters for the next use
depending on how many players in each match, batch N commands together rather than 1 match.
Bigger improvement;
use a table value as a parameter and a merge sql statement. Which should look something like this (untested);
CREATE TYPE [MoraleUpdate] AS TABLE (
[Id] ...,
[Condition] ...,
[Morale] ...
)
GO
MERGE [dbo].[Players] AS [Target]
USING #Updates AS [Source]
ON [Target].[Id] = [Source].[Id]
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE SET SET [Morale] = [Source].[Morale],
[Condition] = [Source].[Condition]
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
dt.Columns.Add("Id", typeof(...));
dt.Columns.Add("Morale", typeof(...));
dt.Columns.Add("Condition", typeof(...));
foreach(...){
dt.Rows.Add(p.Id, p.Morale, p.Condition);
}
SqlParameter sqlParam = cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#Updates", dt);
sqlParam.SqlDbType = SqlDbType.Structured;
sqlParam.TypeName = "dbo.[MoraleUpdate]";
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
You could also implement a DbDatareader to stream the values to the server while you are calculating them.

How do I batch 1000 inserts in the given loop scenario?

ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I have some code which looks like this:
for (int i = start_i; i <= i_s; i++)
{
var json2 = JObject.Parse(RequestServer("query_2", new List<JToken>(){json1["result"]}));
foreach (var data_1 in json2["result"]["data_1"])
{
var json3 = JObject.Parse(RequestServer("query_3", new List<JToken>(){data_1, 1}));
foreach (var data_2 in json3["result"]["data_2"])
{
var data_1 = data_2["id"];
var index = data_2["other"];
}
foreach (var other in json3["result"]["other"])
{
var data_3_1 = other["data_3"]["data_3_1"];
var data_4 = other["data_4"];
var data_5 = other["data_5"];
foreach (var data_3_1 in other["data_3"]["data_3_1"])
{
//Console.WriteLine(data_3_1); <- very fast
insert_data((string)data_3_1); <- very slow
}
}
}
}
This code was able to generate about 5000 WriteLines in less than a minute. However, I now want to insert that data into a database. When I try to do that, the code now takes much much longer to get through the 5000 sets of data.
My question is, how do I batch the database inserts into about 1000 inserts at a time, instead of doing one at a time. I have tried creating the insert statement using a stringbuilder which is fine, what I can't figure out is how to generate 1000 at a time. I have tried using for loops upto 1000, and then trying to break out of the foreach loop, before starting with the next 1000, but it just makes a big mess.
I have looked at questions like this example, but they are no good for my loop scenario. I know how to do bulk inserts at the sql level, I just can't seem to figure out how to generate the bulk sql inserts using the unique loop situation I have above using the those very specific loops in the example code.
The 5000 records was just a test run. The end code will have to deal with millions, if not billions of inserts. Based on rough calculations, the end result will use about 500GB of drive space when inserted into a database, so I will need to batch an optimum amount into RAM before inserting into the database.
UPDATE 1:
This is what happens in insert_data:
public static string insert_data(string data_3_1)
{
string str_conn = #"server=localhost;port=3306;uid=username;password=password;database=database";
MySqlConnection conn = null;
conn = new MySqlConnection(str_conn);
conn.Open();
MySqlCommand cmd = new MySqlCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "INSERT INTO database_table (data_3_1) VALUES (#data_3_1)";
cmd.Prepare();
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#data_3_1", data_3_1);
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
cmd.Parameters.Clear();
return null;
}
You're correct that doing bulk inserts in batches can be a big throughput win. Here's why it's a win: When you do INSERT operations one at a time, the database server does an implicit COMMIT operation after every insert, and that can be slow. So, if you can wrap every hundred or so INSERTs in a single transaction, you'll reduce that overhead.
Here's an outline of how to do that. I'll try to put it in the context of your code, but you didn't show your MySQLConnection object or query objects, so this solution of mine necessarily will be incomplete.
var batchSize = 100;
var batchCounter = batchSize;
var beginBatch = new MySqlCommand("START TRANSACTION;", conn);
var endBatch = new MySqlCommand("COMMIT;", conn);
beginBatch.ExecuteNonQuery();
for (int i = start_i; i <= i_s; i++)
{
....
foreach (var data_1 in json2["result"]["data_1"])
{
...
foreach (var other in json3["result"]["other"])
{
...
foreach (var data_3_1 in other["data_3"]["data_3_1"])
{
//Console.WriteLine(data_3_1); <- very fast
/****************** batch handling **********************/
if ( --batchCounter <= 0) {
/* commit one batch, start the next */
endBatch.ExecuteNonQuery();
beginBatch.ExecuteNonQuery();
batchCounter = batchSize;
}
insert_data((string)data_3_1); <- very slow
}
}
}
}
/* commit the last batch. It's OK if it contains no records */
endBatch.ExecuteNonQuery();
If you want, you can try different values of batchSize to find a good value. But generally something like the 100 I suggest works well.
Batch sizes of 1000 are also OK. But the larger each transaction gets, the more server RAM it uses before it's committed, and the longer it might block other programs using the same MySQL server.
There's a nice and popular extension called MoreLinq that offers an extension method called Batch(int batchSize). To get an IEnumerable containing up to 1000 elements:
foreach (var upTo1000 in other["data_3"]["data_3_1"].Batch(1000))
{
// Build a query using the (up to) 1000 elements in upTo1000
}
The best approach for me was using LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE statement. To make it work first you have to turn ON MySQL server parameter local_infile.
I used mysql2 package for NodeJS and query function:
db.query({
sql: "LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE .......",
infileStreamFactory: <readable stream which provides your data in flat file format>
}, function(err, results) {....});
The trick is to provide a readable stream properly. By default, LOAD DATA expects tab delimited text file. Also LOAD DATA expects some file name and in you case if you provide a stream then file name can be arbitrary string.

Recreating Table and filling with large pack of data SQL Server

I am building application with online database. The database is not on my computer. It is in myasp.net server.
I've got two questions:
This application collects data and after get all, data needs to be sent to this online database. I am open to any solution, including frameworks etc, but I must say that Entity Framework is very slow in my case. My data collection application creating file with inserts values. F.e:
(4880775 , 18196 , 9 , 1),
(4880775 , 9026 , 8.49 , 2),
(4880775 , 4009 , 9.99 , 3),
This file could have (in future) at least 10 mln rows. I have done two tests. One is insert ten times 990 rows using pure SQL query (in VS 2013 right click on database -> new query) and this was something like this:
declare #i int
set #i = 0
while #i < 10
begin
set #i += 1
INSERT INTO daneProduktu VALUES
(4880775 , 18196 , 9 , 1),
(4880775 , 9026 , 8.49 , 2),
(4880775 , 4009 , 9.99 , 3),
...
...
end
And second option was doing the same thing using c# code. I have used Entity Framework
using (var context = new sklepyEntities())
{
context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sb.ToString());
}
and SqlCommand object
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sb.ToString(), connection))
{
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
Full code for c# SqlCommand is:
Stopwatch st = new Stopwatch();
st.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
sb.Clear();
sb.Append("INSERT INTO daneProduktu VALUES ");
r = new StreamReader(sciezka);
while ((line = r.ReadLine()) != null)
{
licznik++;
sb.Append(Environment.NewLine);
sb.Append(line);
}
sb.Length--;
sb.Append(";");
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sb.ToString(), connection))
{
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
sb.Length--;
sb.Append(";");
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sb.ToString(), connection))
{
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
st.Stop();
Both are working, but it is so slow..
To compare timings:
Pure SQL query - ~3s
C# SQL using SqlCommand - ~13s
There was special prepare file with 990 insert values. I was using the same values in both cases.
Why code using option is so slow? Is there any way to make it faster? OFC using pure inserts is not only option. I can do anything else. I can prepare XML file for this, csv or anything else if this could be faster.
Every time, before i do inserts from 1st point, I need to clear table. I was reading about shrinking, that is not good, so I choose to drop and recreate table. After this action there is no less space usage, but when i filling table with inserts, space remains the same. Also I will not need to roll back anything from this table. Is this good way? Or maybe Truncate table will be better?
What I've heard is that sometimes Insert INTO VALUES for many rows is not always the fastest. Have you tried:
INSERT INTO yourTable
SELECT 'Value1'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Value2'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'value3
etc...
I've tried few ways to make this insert, and sqlBulkCopy was fastest. My code is:
using (var sqlBulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(connection, SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock, transaction))
{
sqlBulkCopy.BulkCopyTimeout = 600;
sqlBulkCopy.DestinationTableName = "daneProduktu";
sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("numerProduktu", "numerProduktu");
sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("numerSklepu", "numerSklepu");
sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("cena", "cena");
sqlBulkCopy.ColumnMappings.Add("pozycjaCeneo", "pozycjaCeneo");
sqlBulkCopy.WriteToServer(dt);
}
I'am also using SQL transaction here.
Some of you could say "Use BatchSize". I tried, but this option make this insert slower. I must say, that I've got bad upload. I make some time measurments:
BatchSize in Time
0 in 278768ms
500 in 1207129ms
1000 in 817399ms
1500 in 629146ms
2000 in 531632ms
2500 in 480200ms
3000 in 451510ms
3500 in 446899ms
4000 in 407875ms
4500 in 405808ms
5000 in 387078ms
5500 in 360508ms
10000 in 327231ms
20000 in 305282ms
30000 in 305936ms
40000 in 304494ms
50000 in 303541ms
60000 in 303723ms
80000 in 310058ms
100000 in 297835ms
As you can see, 0 batch size is fastest.
To answer my question about INSERT INTO Values():
Probably this all was about sending those inserts via internet connection. In first case I send ONE order, and loop was done on SQL server. In second case, probably I have send 10 orders to server.

SqLite C# extremely slow on update

I'm really struggling to iron out this issue. When I use the following code to update my database for large numbers of records it runs extremely slow. I've got 500,000 records to update which takes nearly an hour. During this operation, the journal file grows slowly with little change on the main SQLite db3 file - is this normal?
The operation only seems to be a problem when I have large numbers or records to update - it runs virtually instantly on smaller numbers of records.
Some other operations are performed on the database prior to this code running so could they be some how tying up the database? I've tried to ensure that all other connections are closed properly.
Thanks for any suggestions
using (SQLiteConnection sqLiteConnection = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=" + _case.DatabasePath))
{
sqLiteConnection.Open();
using (SQLiteCommand sqLiteCommand = new SQLiteCommand("begin", sqLiteConnection))
{
sqLiteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
sqLiteCommand.CommandText = "UPDATE CaseFiles SET areaPk = #areaPk, KnownareaPk = #knownareaPk WHERE mhash = #mhash";
var pcatpk = sqLiteCommand.CreateParameter();
var pknowncatpk = sqLiteCommand.CreateParameter();
var pmhash = sqLiteCommand.CreateParameter();
pcatpk.ParameterName = "#areaPk";
pknowncatpk.ParameterName = "#knownareaPk";
pmhash.ParameterName = "#mhash";
sqLiteCommand.Parameters.Add(pcatpk);
sqLiteCommand.Parameters.Add(pknowncatpk);
sqLiteCommand.Parameters.Add(pmhash);
foreach (CatItem CatItem in _knownFiless)
{
if (CatItem.FromMasterHashes == true)
{
pcatpk.Value = CatItem.areaPk;
pknowncatpk.Value = CatItem.areaPk;
pmhash.Value = CatItem.mhash;
}
else
{
pcatpk.Value = CatItem.areaPk;
pknowncatpk.Value = null;
pmhash.Value = CatItem.mhash;
}
sqLiteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
sqLiteCommand.CommandText = "end";
sqLiteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
sqLiteCommand.Dispose();
sqLiteConnection.Close();
}
sqLiteConnection.Close();
}
The first thing to ensure that you have an index on mhash.
Group commands into batches.
Use more than one thread.
Or [inserted]
Bulk import the records to a temporary table. Create an index on the mhash column. Perform a single update statement to update the records.
You need to wrap everything inside a transaction otherwise I believe SQLite will create and commit one for you for every update ... hence the slowness. You clearly know that looking at your code but I am not sure using "Begin" and "End" commands achieve the same result here, you might end up with empty transaction at start and finish instead of one wrapping everything. Try something like this instead just in case:
using (SQLiteTransaction mytransaction = myconnection.BeginTransaction())
{
using (SQLiteCommand mycommand = new SQLiteCommand(myconnection))
{
SQLiteParameter myparam = new SQLiteParameter();
mycommand.CommandText = "YOUR QUERY HERE";
mycommand.Parameters.Add(myparam);
foreach (CatItem CatItem in _knownFiless)
{
...
mycommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
mytransaction.Commit();
}
This part is most certainly your problem.
foreach (CatItem CatItem in _knownFiless)
{
....
sqLiteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
You are looping a List(?) and executing a query against the database. That is not a good way to do it. Because database calls are quite expensive. So you might consider using another way of updating these items.
The SQL code appears to be okay. The C# code is not wrong, but it has some redundancy (explicit close/dispose is not needed since you're using a using already).
There is a for loop on _knownFiless (intended with double s?), could that run slowly possibly? It is unusual to run a query in a for loop against the DB, rather you should create a query with the respective set of parameters. Consider that (especially without an index on the hash) you will perform n * m operations (n being the run count of the for loop, m being the table size).
Considering that m is around 500k, and assuming that m = n you will get 250,000,000,000 operations. That may well last an hour.
Former connections or operations should have no effect as far as I know.
You should also ensure that the internal structure of the database is not causing problems. Is there a compound index that is affected from this operation? Any foreign keys / complex contraints?

How to optimise LinqToSQL in c#

i am attempting to update approximately 150,000 records in a table in SQL 2005 using linq2sql. When it comes to xx.SubmitChanges() it is taking about 45 minutes.
I am running sql as a local instance on a quad core pc.
Does anyone know why this is taking so long? or is that normal?
Code Sample:
var y = db.x.Where(j => j.NumberOfOrders > 0).Select(k => k);
foreach (var item in y)
{
try
{
item.k = "bla";
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//
}
}
db.SubmitChanges();
this will take much time there is no bulk insert in linq to sql.In this case it is inserting one by one record to your context and finally its goes and save in your database when you call SubmitChanges().So it is taking time.
If you have big record like 150,000 records. Better to use Bulk insert in sql.This will take only fraction of seconds only to insert .
You don't need the Select() because it is projecting the same thing as the Where()
And there's no need for using try-catch for just a simple assigment.
But definitely the best thing to do is the Bulk Insert Stuff that anishmarokey is talking about
A large update such as this would be done with an UPDATE query (or stored proc) that can use the database to do the heavy lifting (and transaction management/consistency). I know you're simplifying the example, but what about something like this:
string CommandText = "UPDATE x SET k = #k WHERE NumberOfOrders > 0";
using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(My.Settings.DatabaseConnection)) {
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(CommandText, conn)) {
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#k", "bla");
conn.Open();
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}

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