When writing code, which is the perferred way of handling data, for example if I was going to parse thru log files and then format the the data into a report. Which is more efficient on the system:

1.) Grab all the data I need and place it in a temp file and then go back and do the formatting?
2.) Grab the data into a memory buffer and procees each bit individually?
3.) Grab all of the data into memory and then batch process it all to the format I want.

Which is going to places the least stress on the system? Or what is the preferred manner of doing something such as this? I would tend to thing that processing each line of data would seem to be the least stressful on the system. Just wanted to know what everyone else thought.

In reply to Questions about efficiency by scottstef

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