Downloadable Search Application (windows) using VB.NET

[prabhu@ctt-inc.com]

Hi-


I am working on a downloadable desktop application (windows) using
VB.NET which can search for data in a data file. I have used XML as a
data file before, are there any other better data file formats
available?


Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Prabhu

 

[jmcilhinney]

XML is a great technology and very useful but can be overkill in some situations. If the data is relatively simple you could just use comma-separated values.

 

[kulrom]

Hi-


I am working on a downloadable desktop application (windows) using
VB.NET which can search for data in a data file. I have used XML as a
data file before, are there any other better data file formats
available?


Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Prabhu

XML is data, not objects ... so you can keep using it as best solution for the purpose
Cheers

 

[prabhu@ctt-inc.com]

Hi All-

Thank you all for your suggestions. Since the size of the XML was over 100MB and since it was causing performance issues, I am going to try using MSDE (MS Desktop Engine) as a local database.

Are there any knows issues in using MSDE. According to MSDN, it seem to be a cool approach.

Thanks again.
Prabhu

 

[kulrom]

Wow, you didn't mention anythign about size of certain xml file (100MB) ...
you should use xml whilst file size is kept below 2MB ...
about MSDE ... in my opinion that's a free version of SQL Server with couple limitation ... actually MSDE is a redistributable version of SQL Server. It is a database engine provided by Microsoft that is based on the core SQL Server technology and supports single- and dual-processor desktop computers. In other words, MSDE 2000 is a scaled down copy of SQL Server. MSDE 2000 was introduced to provide application developers a database engine that is more powerful than the Jet engine and at the same time expandable to SQL Server. It is ideal for client applications requiring an embedded database and websites serving up to 25 concurrent users.

MSDE Database Limitations

MSDE is intended for single user or small workgroup environments. The following are some of the MSDE limitations in comparison with SQL Server:

• No Enterprise Manager
• No Query Analyzer
• No Index Tuning Wizard
• Only 2GB RAM
• Only 2GB database size limit
• Only 2 CPUs
• Only five concurrent batch workloads or 25 concurrent connections for websites
• No Database Server Failover Support
• No Full-text search
• No SQL Server Profiler
• No Import and Export Wizards
• No OLAP
• No English Query
• No SQL Books Online
• No Full or Bulk-Logged recovery model support (only simple)

(This list covers most of the MSDE limitations. There may be a few omitted.)

Kind regards