Instead of doing a 'selectall' try sending an actual SQL query to the database. When you do, use the 'LIMIT' operator to keep the number of rows returned down. Then you could use any number of ways to assign the data to variables. When dealing with more than one column of data I prefer to use 'fetchrow_array' or 'fetchrow_arrayref'. Example:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
$dbh = DBI->connect( #your database info here# );
$sth = $dbh->prepare( "SELECT * FROM table_name LIMIT x" );   # prepar
+es a query to send to DB where 'x' is the number of rows you want ret
+urned
$sth->execute();   # execute the query against the db

while ( ($col1, $col2) = $sth->fetchrow_array() ) {
     # code
     # code
     # code....etc.
}
$sth->finish();
$dbh->disconnect();
[download]

Hope this helps. - kel -