Fastest way to search in a string collection

Question

Problem:

I have a text file of around 120,000 users (strings) which I would like to store in a collection and later to perform a search on that collection.

The search method will occur every time the user change the text of a TextBox and the result should be the strings that contain the text in TextBox.

I don't have to change the list, just pull the results and put them in a ListBox.

What I've tried so far:

I tried with two different collections/containers, which I'm dumping the string entries from an external text file (once, of course):

1. List<string> allUsers;
2. HashSet<string> allUsers;

With the following LINQ query:

allUsers.Where(item => item.Contains(textBox_search.Text)).ToList();

My search event (fires when user change the search text):

private void textBox_search_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (textBox_search.Text.Length > 2)
    {
        listBox_choices.DataSource = allUsers.Where(item => item.Contains(textBox_search.Text)).ToList();
    }
    else
    {
        listBox_choices.DataSource = null;
    }
}

Results:

Both gave me a poor response time (around 1-3 seconds between each key press).

Question:

Where do you think my bottleneck is? The collection I've used? The search method? Both?

How can I get better performance and more fluent functionality?

Answer 1

You could consider doing the filtering task on a background thread which would invoke a callback method when it's done, or simply restart filtering if input is changed.

The general idea is to be able to use it like this:

public partial class YourForm : Form
{
    private readonly BackgroundWordFilter _filter;

    public YourForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        // setup the background worker to return no more than 10 items,
        // and to set ListBox.DataSource when results are ready

        _filter = new BackgroundWordFilter
        (
            items: GetDictionaryItems(),
            maxItemsToMatch: 10,
            callback: results => 
              this.Invoke(new Action(() => listBox_choices.DataSource = results))
        );
    }

    private void textBox_search_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // this will update the background worker's "current entry"
        _filter.SetCurrentEntry(textBox_search.Text);
    }
}

A rough sketch would be something like:

public class BackgroundWordFilter : IDisposable
{
    private readonly List<string> _items;
    private readonly AutoResetEvent _signal = new AutoResetEvent(false);
    private readonly Thread _workerThread;
    private readonly int _maxItemsToMatch;
    private readonly Action<List<string>> _callback;

    private volatile bool _shouldRun = true;
    private volatile string _currentEntry = null;

    public BackgroundWordFilter(
        List<string> items,
        int maxItemsToMatch,
        Action<List<string>> callback)
    {
        _items = items;
        _callback = callback;
        _maxItemsToMatch = maxItemsToMatch;

        // start the long-lived backgroud thread
        _workerThread = new Thread(WorkerLoop)
        {
            IsBackground = true,
            Priority = ThreadPriority.BelowNormal
        };

        _workerThread.Start();
    }

    public void SetCurrentEntry(string currentEntry)
    {
        // set the current entry and signal the worker thread
        _currentEntry = currentEntry;
        _signal.Set();
    }

    void WorkerLoop()
    {
        while (_shouldRun)
        {
            // wait here until there is a new entry
            _signal.WaitOne();
            if (!_shouldRun)
                return;

            var entry = _currentEntry;
            var results = new List<string>();

            // if there is nothing to process,
            // return an empty list
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(entry))
            {
                _callback(results);
                continue;
            }

            // do the search in a for-loop to 
            // allow early termination when current entry
            // is changed on a different thread
            foreach (var i in _items)
            {
                // if matched, add to the list of results
                if (i.Contains(entry))
                    results.Add(i);

                // check if the current entry was updated in the meantime,
                // or we found enough items
                if (entry != _currentEntry || results.Count >= _maxItemsToMatch)
                    break;
            }

            if (entry == _currentEntry)
                _callback(results);
        }
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        // we are using AutoResetEvent and a background thread
        // and therefore must dispose it explicitly
        Dispose(true);
    }

    private void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        if (!disposing)
            return;

        // shutdown the thread
        if (_workerThread.IsAlive)
        {
            _shouldRun = false;
            _currentEntry = null;
            _signal.Set();
            _workerThread.Join();
        }

        // if targetting .NET 3.5 or older, we have to
        // use the explicit IDisposable implementation
        (_signal as IDisposable).Dispose();
    }
}

Also, you should actually dispose the _filter instance when the parent Form is disposed. This means you should open and edit your Form's Dispose method (inside the YourForm.Designer.cs file) to look something like:

// inside "xxxxxx.Designer.cs"
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
    if (disposing)
    {
        if (_filter != null)
            _filter.Dispose();

        // this part is added by Visual Studio designer
        if (components != null)
            components.Dispose();
    }

    base.Dispose(disposing);
}

On my machine, it works pretty quickly, so you should test and profile this before going for a more complex solution.

That being said, a "more complex solution" would possibly be to store the last couple of results in a dictionary, and then only filter them if it turns out that the new entry differs by only the first of last character.