Saving and loading large 2d arrays?

[LarsHolen]

Im trying to save/load a 2d array containing "Tiles". So far Iv saved it out as
an XML file. But when i load the xml file and loop through it to populate the new 2d array, flash freeze up for about 3-5 secs depending on how many variables i pull out of the xml. The 2d array itself are 67x67, making the xml 4489 "tiles" long.

Is there a better way to save/load large levels without using a database?

[dialectric]

I have heard of people encoding data as png or bmp using setpixel, saving the image, then loading the image, and using getpixel to pull the data back out of the image. Your image would probably be 67x67 pixels, which would load fairly quickly, but the conversion process of pulling the data back out using getpixel might be quite slow.

if all the levels are the same size, and you have less than 128 different tiles,
one long (4489 characters long) string of ascii characters, with each ascii char representing a different tile, would save and load much faster than xml.

- dialectric