Need to speed up automapper...It takes 32 seconds to do 113 objects

Question

Hi I have some major problems with auto mapper and it being slow. I am not sure how to speed it up.

I am using nhibernate,fluent nhibernate and asp.net mvc 3.0

[Serializable()]
    public class Test
    {
        public virtual int Id { get; private set; }
        public virtual string Name { get;  set; }
        public virtual string Description { get; set; }
        public virtual DateTimeDate { get; set; }
        public virtual IList<Reminder> Reminders { get; set; }
        public virtual IList<Reminder2> Reminders2 { get; set; }
        public virtual Test2 Test2 { get; set; }

        public Test()
        {
            Reminders = new List<Reminders>();
            Reminders2 = new List<Reminders2>();
        }

    }

So as you can see I got some properties, Some other classes as in my database I have references between them.

I then do this

var a = // get all items (returns a collection of Test2)
var List<MyViewModel> collection = new List<MyViewModel>();
     foreach (Test2 t in a)
            {
                MyViewModel vm = Mapper.Map<Test2, MyViewModel>(t);
                vm.SetDateFormat(t.DateTimeDate, DateFilters.All.ToString());

                collection.Add(vm);
            }

// view model

    public class MyViewModel
        {
            public int Id  { get; private set; }
            public string Name { get; set; }
            public string Description { get; set; }
            public DateTime DateTimeDate { get; set; }
            public string FormatedDueDate { get; set; }
            public string Test2Prefix { get; set; }
            public string Test2BackgroundColor { get; set; }
            public string SelectedDateFilter { get; set; }
            public bool DescState { get; set; }
            public bool AlertState { get; set; }


            /// <summary>
            /// Constructor
            /// </summary>
            public MyViewModel()
            {
                // Default values
                SelectedDateFilter = "All";
                DescState = false;
                AlertState = false;
            }

            /// <summary>
            /// Sets the date formatter string used
            /// </summary>
            /// <param name="dateFormat"></param>
            public void SetDateFormat(DateTime dueDate, string dateFilter)
            {
                // simple if statement to format date.
            }
        }

// mapping

  Mapper.CreateMap<Test2,MyViewModel>().ForMember(dest => dest.DescState, opt =>
 opt.ResolveUsing<DescStateResolver>())
                 .ForMember(dest => dest.AlertState, opt =>
 opt.ResolveUsing<AlertStateResolver>());

// resolvers

public class AlertStateResolver : ValueResolver<Task, bool>
    {
        protected override bool ResolveCore(Task source)
        {
            if (source.Reminders.Count > 0 || source.Reminders2.Count > 0)
            {
                return true;
            }
            else
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }   

  public class DescStateResolver : ValueResolver<Task,bool>
    {
        protected override bool ResolveCore(Task source)
        {
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(source.Description))
            {
                return false;
            }
            else
            {
                return true;
            }
        }
    }

Ignore the weird names and any typos my real object works just fine and makes sense.

So I used the stop watch and did this

Stopwatch a = new Stopwatch()
    foreach (Test2 t in a)
                {
                    a.Start()                     
                    MyViewModel vm = Mapper.Map<Test2, MyViewModel>(t);
                    a.Stop()
                    vm.SetDateFormat(t.DateTimeDate, DateFilters.All.ToString());

                    collection.Add(vm);
                }

var b = a.Elapsed; // comes back with 32 seconds.

I need to optimized this very badly.

Answer 1

Instead of:

var a = // get all items (returns a collection of Test2)
List<MyViewModel> collection = new List<MyViewModel>();
foreach (Test2 t in a)
{
    MyViewModel vm = Mapper.Map<Test2, MyViewModel>(t);
    vm.SetDateFormat(t.DateTimeDate, DateFilters.All.ToString());
    collection.Add(vm);
}

Try:

var a = // get all items (returns a collection of Test2)
List<MyViewModel> collection = Mapper.Map<IEnumerable<Test2>, IEnumerable<MyViewModel>>(a);

which is equivalent to the first except the SetDateFormat call which you could do at your mapping definition. It might also be faster.

If you have a mapping defined between Test2 => MyViewModel AutoMapper automatically provides one for IEnumerable<Test2> => IEnumerable<MyViewModel> so that you don't need to loop.

Also you have mentioned NHibernate in your question. Make sure that your source object along with its collections is eagerly loaded from the database before passing it to the mapping layer or you cannot blame AutoMapper for being slow because when it tries to map one of the collections of your source object it hits the database because NHibernate didn't fetch this collection.