what is the best Approach to save a List Object?

Lets say I have a custom Object Person and then I have a Person Collection Object which is basically a List or a collection of Person.

Now I want to save the collection object into Database.

Should I loop though the entire collection object and save one person by peron into the database? or is there any other method?

Thanks!

I would loop through the collection just as you have suggested and save them one by one, but maybe someone has a better idea.

You can save both the list and object into the database. It depends upon the scenario, in which you want to use it. If you in future you need complete list then save list into the database. But if you want individual person object then save them separately. See this thread how to save objects:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=494225

Thanks for your response ecbruck.

I was thinking of converting my list object into a DataTable and then use the   SqlDataAdapter.Update(dataTable)  Method.

Do you have any idea about that?

Thanks again!

Another way is to serialize the list object to xml and pass the xml to DB for single insert....

Saravanan

sahajMarg:

Thanks for your response ecbruck.

I was thinking of converting my list object into a DataTable and then use the   SqlDataAdapter.Update(dataTable)  Method.

Do you have any idea about that?

Thanks again!

I've used this method if I've started with a DataTable, but not otherwise. I'd have to test the differences in the two, but usually I'd simply loop through the collection.

sahajMarg:

Should I loop though the entire collection object and save one person by peron into the database? or is there any other method?

If you are going to loop and save each person individually ensure you wrap it in a transaction so that if there is an exception half way through saving you can roll back to a known state and avoid having some people saved and others transient.

Introducing System.Transactions in the .NET Framework 2.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973865.aspx

Unit of Work Pattern
http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/unitOfWork.html

For Custom Object, it could be better to loop in the list and save them one by one, instead of using the datatable, datatable has some good features but it comes with it's overhide too.