SqlDataReader are these two the same Which one is faster

Question

I am working with SqlXml and the stored procedure that returns a xml rather than raw data. How does one actually read the data when returned is a xml and does not know about

Answer 1

Compared to the speed of getting data from disk both will be effectively as fast as each other.

The two calls aren't equivalent: the version with an indexer returns an object, whereas GetString() converts the object to a string, throwing an exception if this isn't possible (i.e. the column is DBNull).

So although GetString() might be slightly slower, you'll be casting to a string anyway when you use it.

Given all the above I'd use GetString().