note jbrugger I found a nice article <a href="http://gmax.oltrelinux.com/dbirecipes.html#fetching_a_hash_without_speed_penalty">here</a>.<br> Basically, you want large sets not in an arrayref, but as a hash, since it's more clear what column holds the data.<br> e.g. <code> # tested this on live data, this is twice as fast as fetchrow_hashref, and has the same advantage.. # example taken from the link above. my @fields = (qw(emp_id first_name monthly_payment)); $sth->execute; my %rec =(); $sth->bind_columns(map {\$rec{$_}} @fields); print "$rec{emp_id}\t", "$rec{first_name}\t", "$rec{monthly_payment}\n" while $sth->fetchrow_arrayref; </code> *Update*<br> Hmm, Funny indeed, anyway, i still consider this as a valuable way to speed up the DBI. :-) <br><br> <!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only --> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-417993"> <small>"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." - Larry Wall.</small> </div></div> 273952 273952