I am not sure that your SQL works without knowing the details of what XMLRECORD and F_COMPANY mean.

What does this code print?

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

#.....

my $sth = $dbh->prepare("select XMLRECORD from F_COMPANY") or
            die "Couldnt prepare statement: " . $dbh->errstr;

$sth->execute();

my $array_ref =  $sth->fetchall_arrayref();

print Dumper $array_ref;
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It could be that @$array_ref contains no elements. That is completely legal. If you do have a non-zero array, then Dumper should be able to print it out. then we can work on your code to dereference the bits that you want. Update: and work on making this more memory efficient (if necessary).