Use SQLBulkCopy of ADO.NET 2.0

Valid for Environment: NET 2.0 or above on SQL Server 2005 database or above

With ADO.NET 2.0 we got the programming interface for Bulk Copy which provides quite simple and straight forward mechanism to transfer the data from one SQL server instance to another, from one table to another, from DataTable to SQL Server 2005 database, from DataReader to SQL Server 2005 database and many more.

SqlBulkCopy belongs to System.Data.SqlClient namespace and it is as simple as ADO.NET Command object when it comes to programming it. Let us see it working:

private void btnSQLBulkCopyInsert_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// Get the DataTable

DataTable dtInsertRows = GetDataTable();

using (SqlBulkCopy sbc = new SqlBulkCopy(connectionString))

{

sbc.DestinationTableName = “Person”;

// Number of records to be processed in one go

sbc.BatchSize = 2;

// Map the Source Column from DataTabel to the Destination Columns in SQL Server 2005 Person Table

sbc.ColumnMappings.Add(“PersonId”, “PersonId”);

sbc.ColumnMappings.Add(“PersonName”, “PersonName”);

// Number of records after which client has to be notified about its status

sbc.NotifyAfter = dtInsertRows.Rows.Count;

// Event that gets fired when NotifyAfter number of records are processed.

sbc.SqlRowsCopied+=new SqlRowsCopiedEventHandler(sbc_SqlRowsCopied);

// Finally write to server

sbc.WriteToServer(dtInsertRows);

sbc.Close();

}

}

void sbc_SqlRowsCopied(object sender, SqlRowsCopiedEventArgs e)

{

MessageBox.Show(“Number of records affected : ” + e.RowsCopied.ToString());

}

The code above is very simple and quite self explanatory.

Key Notes :

1. BatchSize and NotifyAfter are two different properties. Former specify the number of records to be processed in one go while later specifies the number of records to be processed after which client needs to be notified.