my $counter = 'SELECT pagecounter FROM counters WHERE pagename = ?',
      undef, $pagename;

##</code><code>##

my ($counter) = $db->selectrow_array(
   'SELECT pagecounter FROM counters WHERE pagename = ?', 
   undef, $pagename);

##</code><code>##

my @counter = $db->selectrow_array(
   'SELECT pagecounter FROM counters WHERE pagename = ?', 
   undef, $pagename);