http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=118115


in reply to Memory usage with DBI

If you use fetchrow_* with DBD::mysql, it will actually fetch EVERY row into the client's local memory! I know it sounds strange, but that's the way it works by default for that particular DBD driver. If you want to change this behavior, you need to look at the mysql_store_result option. See this thread on the mod_perl list for more.