SqlBulkCopy from a List<>

Question

How can I make a big insertion with SqlBulkCopy from a List<> of simple object ?

Does I to implement my custom IDataReader ?

Answer 1

Simply create a DataTable from your list of objects and call SqlBulkCopy.WriteToServer, passing the data table.

You might find the following useful:

• Adding columns to a DataTable. Add a column for each property/field you wish to write.
• Adding rows to a DataTable. Add a row for each object in your list.

For maximum performance with SqlBulkCopy, you should set an appropriate BatchSize. 10,000 seems to work well - but profile for your data.

You might also observe better results when using SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock.

An interesting and informative analysis of SqlBulkCopy performance can be found here.