ASP processing of text file data: FSO vs. XML/DOM

Question

For reading and writing to text files stored within the same folder structure as a given ASP web site application, how much processing efficiency difference is there between storing the text data in a traditional INI or "flat-file" structure via Scripting.FileSystemObject (FSO), as compared with storing it in an XML "flat-file" and using XMLDOM? This is with regards to IIS7 or later. I've heard that XML is slower to parse and process from ASP/VBScript, versus TXT file data via FSO. Is that true?

Answer 1

I used XML parsing in the past and it is extemely slow, only use it if the structure of the XML is needed because your data is complicated and/or hierachical. One of the only things Vbscript (and ASP) is fast in is reading and writing files with FSO, so use that.

The best is always to do some benchmarking but be sure to do it on the same place on disk as your ASP files because there can be huge differences. Also check if you could not better use database storage, this thould be teh fastest solution for bigger data.