Performance issues with nested loops and string concatenations

Question

Can someone please explain why this code is taking so long to run (i.e. >24 hours): The number of rows is 5000, whilst the number of columns is 2000 (i.e. Approximately 10m loop

Answer 1

The biggest issue I see with this is the fact you're using textToWrite as a string.

As strings are immutable so each time the string is changed new memory must be reserved copied from the previous version.

A far more efficient approach is to use the StringBuilder class which is designed for exactly this type of scenario. For example:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < m.rows; i++)
{
    for (int j = 0; j < m.cols; j++)
    {
        sb.Append(m[i, j].ToString());
        if(j < m.cols - 1) // don't add a comma on the last element
        {
          sb.Append(",");
        }
    }
    sb.AppendLine();
}