in reply to Big database queries

You may have a LIMIT qualifier available:

$sth = $dbh->prepare("select COLUMN_1 from table where COLUMN_2 < ? LIMIT ?, ?")

I threw in a placeholder for the upper bound just for flexibility's sake. The first argument to LIMIT is the offset, the second, the number of rows to grab.

After Compline,
Zaxo

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom