Array which Pages to Disk

Question

Does anyone know of a .NET array class/library which will page its contents out to disk?

The idea is to be able to use it as a normal array but the class uses less RAM (to avoid getting out-of-memory exceptions with more than 2GB of data). Ideally the class will implement one of:

• System.Collections.Generic.IList
• System.Collection.IList

So it will easily slot into existing code – and hopefully work with a DataGridView (although I may still need to implement “Virtual Mode”).

Any ideas much appreciated!

Answer 1

I haven't come across anything like that, but I guess that's because it's rarely needed. After all, a database table (in SQL Server or any other database) is in essence a disk-based array.

You could write an IList<> wrapper around a database table. Throw in some caching and you have a perfect disk-based array.

Answer 2

Unless you're dealing with fixed length records (and even then there's issues) you're going to run into a lot of problems with treating 2GB of data like an array that make a lot of array uses perform horribly -

• IndexOf()
• InsertAt()
• RemoveAt()
• Sort()

Is there any reason a database wouldn't work?