Is StreamReader.Readline() really the fastest method to count lines in a file?

Question

While looking around for a while I found quite a few discussions on how to figure out the number of lines in a file.

For example these three:
c# how do I count l

Answer 1

The best way to know how to do this fast is to think about the fastest way to do it without using C/C++.

In assembly there is a CPU level operation that scans memory for a character so in assembly you would do the following

• Read big part (or all) of the file into memory
• Execute the SCASB command
• Repeat as needed

So, in C# you want the compiler to get as close to that as possible.