I am developing a website. in which all the dropdown lists and the gridview is populated from some table. I was using datasets to fetch data from database (in SQL server 2000), andthen I was assigning this dataset to be the datasource of that list or gridview. Recentaly one of my friends suggested that it is better to use datareader rather than datasource. I am in a dilema what to use. Specially keeping in mind that we are developing a website and not a desktop applications. Can somebody help me in deciding which is better ?

Akhilesh

I think it's generally accepted that a DataReader is faster than a DataSet. A DataReader provide forward only access and is optimized for that.

For me, doing primarily web development, I have generally preferred a DataReader because I would usually be getting data into one or more class instances and then working with the classes. Typically updates would be made one at a time thru T-SQL on a single record or value basis. In a windows app, using disconnected datasets would be more sensible because the DataSet can easily remain in memory where you can make many changes and then commit them back to the data source in a single action.

I don't think that you have to chose between "datareader versus datasource" because I'm not sure they are mutually exclusive. A data source is a source of data whether it's a DataReader, DataSet, or class instance (such as an array or collection). I suspect you may be confusing the terms "SqlDataSource", "ObjectDataSource", etc. with the "DataSource" property of data bound controls.

-Peter

Thank you very much for the reply. I am sorry that the Heading of the query is Datareader vs datasource whereas I intended to write Datreader vs Datasets. But ur reply has removed some of my doubts. Do we have any article on the topic on some site??

http://www.google.com/search?q=datareader+vs+dataset

-Peter

data reader is much fater than dataset. Dataset consumes more memory . But if if u have more data and make modification on that then use dataset , bcoz it is working as disconnected way.
Hope u r problem is solved
Johny Sourair

Johny Souriar