Fastest way to fill an InDesign table with data

Question

Hello,
I have to fill several InDesign tables with the content of my database.
I have the database in memory and fill the cells in two Loops (For Each row..., For Each col...).
But it is so slow! Is there a faster way?
Here a code snippet of the solution today:
            For Each row In tableRecord
                Dim inDRow = table.Rows.AsEnumerable().ElementAt(intRow)
                For Each content In row
                    Dim cell = inDRow.Cells.AsEnumerable().ElementAt(content.Index)
                    cell.Contents = content.Value
                Next
                intRow+=1
            Next
Thank you for help!
Best regards
Harald

Answer 1

Hi, Harald!
"This should be faster: table.Contents=Array. Or not?"
Surprisingly is was not. It was slower. A lot slower.
The array was gathered by (here ExtendScript(JavaScript) dummy code) :
myArray = myTable.contents;
Then I did operate on the array. Not on the table object or its cell objects. No direct access to InDesign's DOM objects. Just the built array.
My text file was written by populating it with a string of the array:
myString = myArray.join("separatorString");
separatorString was something that was never used as contents in the table.
Something like "§§§"…
After importing the text file I used the convertToTable() method providing the separatorString as separator for the first and second argument with the number of columns as third argument. The number of columns was known from my original table.
var myNewTable = myText.convertToTable("separatorString", "separatorString", myNumberOfColumns);
Alternatively you could also remove the table after building the array and assign "myString" as contents for the insertionPoint of the removed table in the story. I think I tested that as well, but do not know, if there is a difference in speed opposed to placing a text file with the same contents (I think it was, but not I'm not sure anymore). So I ended up with:
1. Contents of table to Array
2. Array manipulation
3. Array to String
4. Write String as file
5. Remove table
6. Place file at InsertionPoint of (now removed) table
Also to note: This was in InDesign CS5 with a very large table.
Things could have changed in InDesign versions with 64-Bit support.
But I did not test that yet. The customer I wrote this script for is still on CS5.
Uwe