使用BinaryWriter进行部分文件更新

Question

I'm looking for a method by which I can do partial updates, adding and removing key/value pairs to a file from my dictionary using BinaryWriter . Overwriting a complete file seems simple enough with the following code but since I could potentially have a lot of records, ~26,000, I'm worried that performance would become an issue. (I have not run tests to confirm this).

The context in which I need this is for a persistable index of cached image files accessed via a HttpModule .

My starting point:

using (FileStream fileStream = File.Create(this.cachedIndexFile))
{
    using (BinaryWriter binaryWriter = new BinaryWriter(fileStream))
    {
        // Put the count.
        binaryWriter.Write(this.Count);

        // Put the values.
        foreach (var pair in this)
        {
            binaryWriter.Write(pair.Key);
            binaryWriter.Write(pair.Value.ToString());
        }
    }
}

If there are better alternatives within the framework I would happily use them. BinaryWriter is the only thing I know of and searching alternatives has proved unrewarding.

I have found this article here but have found it difficult to follow and the downloadable project file even more difficult. Perhaps a solution could be based upon that?

Answer 1

Following the advice in comments I decided that indeed a database was the best idea. I have gone with SQLite.