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I am writing a program that searches and copies mp3-files to a specified directory.

Currently I am using a List that is filled with all the mp3s in a directory (which takes - not surprisingly - a very long time.) Then I use taglib-sharp to compare the ID3Tags with the artist and title entered. If they match I copy the file.

Since this is my first program and I am very new to programming I figure there must be a better/more efficient way to do this. Does anybody have a suggestion on what I could try?

Edit: I forgot to add an important detail: I want to be able to specify what directories should be searched every time I start a search (the directory to be searched will be specified in the program itself). So storing all the files in a database or something similar isn't really an option (unless there is a way to do this every time which is still efficient). I am basically looking for the best way to search through all the files in a directory where the files are indexed every time. (I am aware that this is probably not a good idea but I'd like to do it that way. If there is no real way to do this I'll have to reconsider but for now I'd like to do it like that.)

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  • Show some code you want to have optimized. Otherwise nobody knows what can be optimized. Commented Oct 24, 2011 at 10:13
  • @peer: There is not much optimizations to be done when reading from a disk. Or what did you have in mind? Commented Oct 24, 2011 at 10:15

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You are mostly saddled with the bottleneck that is IO, a consequence of the hardware with which you are working. It will be the copying of files that is the denominator here (other than finding the files, which is dwarfed compared to copying).

There are other ways to go about file management, and each exposing better interfaces for different purposes, such as NTFS Change Journals and low-level sector handling (not recommended) for example, but if this is your first program in C# then maybe you don't want to venture into p/invoking native calls.

Other than alternatives to actual processes, you might consider mechanisms to minimise disk access - i.e. not redoing anything you have already done, or don't need to do.

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Minimizing disk access is what I had in mind when I tried using a list in which all the files are stored. This way I could just look through the list after it has been filled. However I think this is not a good idea because a list with tens of thousands entries in it could be/will be pretty slow.
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Use an database (simple binary serialized file or an embedded database like RavenDb) to cache all files. And query that cache instead.

Also store modified time for each folder in the database. Compare the time in the database with the time on the folder each time you start your application (and sync changed folders).

That ought to give you much better performance. Threading will not really help searching folders since it's the disk IO that takes time, not your application.

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I have forgotten to include an impportant detail when asking my question, I have edited the original question. Basically I want to be able to index all the files each time a search is started. Therefor a database isn't really an option (unless it can still be efficient when the files are stored new every time) I'm sorry for not mentioning this earlier.

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