StringWriter or StringBuilder

Question

What is the difference and when should I use one or the other?

Answer 1

A StringWriter is used to write text to a file memory and a StringBuilder is used to append strings together in a memory-efficient manner.

Answer 2

See this...

(CW'ed coz Jon did all the work)

Answer 3

StringBuilder is used to mass string concatenation. It's more effective for more then 5 string, AFAIK, then String.Concat(). Also it can be used with specific format (.AppendFormat())

Answer 4

The StringBuilder class is basically a mutable string, a helper class to construct an immutable string. The StringWriter is built on top to add more convenience functions for string formatting.

Answer 5

Use StringBuilder if you are working with a string within your code.

Use StringWriter to serve up text within your code.

I would use StringBuilder for writing of strings and StringWriter for the reading of the strings within your code.

See StringWriter on MSDN

Answer 6

StringWriter derives from TextWriter, which allows various classes to write text without caring where it's going. In the case of StringWriter, the output is just into memory. You would use this if you're calling an API which needs a TextWriter but you only want to build up results in memory.

StringBuilder is essentially a buffer which allows you to perform multiple operations (typically appends) to a "logical string" without creating a new string object each time. You would use this to construct a string in multiple operations.