Crystal Report XI trouble with big XML data file

Question

I have a big xml file (65 Mo) that I need to feed to a Crystal Report XI. My problem is that I tried running the report and it takes forever to display a single page (about 15 minutes a page). I still cannot see the end result since I am not patient enough to wait 15 days to get the full report.

My total report should be around 1500 pages and there is about 35000 lines of details.

Is there anything that I could do to improve performance? I tried using a XSD with the XML file but it is not really faster.

Would it be faster to use any other kind of connection? Would it be faster if I was directly querying the SQL database via OLE DB?

Answer 1

You'll have to switch to a more flexible data source, ie the SQL database. This will, barring network oddities, be much faster. As it is, if your report contains any sorting, grouping or filtering at all it is forced to parse the entire file before it can show the first page, which I suspect is the main cause of the huge delay. This will be much quicker when there's a server doing the work, which can then take advantage of indices and cache and pre-compiled routines.