Automatically caching data is useful when you do not want to rebuild the cache for each query. When you query data for the first time, the provider automatically initializes and builds a cache in the background. When AutoCache = true, the provider uses the cache for subsequent query executions, resulting in faster response times.

Configuring Automatic Caching

Caching the Sheet Table

The following example caches the Sheet table in the file specified by the CacheLocation property of the connection string.

C#

String connectionString = "Cache Location=C:\\cache.db;AutoCache=true;URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;";
using (ExcelConnection connection = new ExcelConnection(connectionString)) {
  ExcelCommand cmd = new ExcelCommand("SELECT RowId, LastName FROM Sheet WHERE FirstName <> 'Bob'", connection);
  ExcelDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
  while (rdr.Read()) {
    Console.WriteLine("Read and cached the row with RowId " + rdr["RowId"]);
  }
}

VB.NET

Dim connectionString As [String] = "Cache Location=C:\\cache.db;AutoCache=true;URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;"
Using connection As New ExcelConnection(connectionString)
  Dim cmd As New ExcelCommand("SELECT RowId, LastName FROM Sheet WHERE FirstName <> 'Bob'", connection)
  Dim rdr As ExcelDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()
  While rdr.Read()
	  Console.WriteLine("Read and cached the row with RowId " + rdr("RowId"))
  End While
End Using

Common Use Case

A common use for automatically caching data is to improve driver performance when making repeated requests to a live data source, such as building a report or creating a visualization. With auto caching enabled, repeated requests to the same data may be executed in a short period of time, but within an allowable tolerance (CacheTolerance) of what is considered "live" data.