my $sql = <prepare( $sql ); # "prepare" once do { warn "server $lookup: prepare failed\n"; next } unless $sth; for my $key (sort keys %list) { for my $rpt ( sort keys %{$list{$key}} ) { my @drec = @{$list{$key}{$rpt}}; my $phone = $drec[1]; $sth->execute( $phone ); # "execute" repeatedly my @dbrec = $sth->fetchrow_array; if ( @dbrec ) { ... } } } }