# use DBI oracle my $dbh = DBI->connect( "dbi:Oracle:host=server.domain.com; sid=sid; port=1521", "username", "password" ) or die "Can't connect to database $DBI::errstr\n"; # The SELECT query # This query return ~945,000,000,000 records $sql_chr = qq{ select column_a, g.column_b, column_c, column_d, column_e from table_f f, table_g g where f.column_a = g.column_b and column_c != '-/-' and column_d = 'STR' and column_e = 'STR1' and column_a = 9 }; print time; my $sth_chr = $dbh->prepare( $sql_chr ); print time; if($sth_chr->execute) { my $now = time; print $now; my $stop = $now + 60; my $s=1; while( my ( @dat ) = $sth_chr->fetchrow ) { $s++; last if time() > $stop; } print $s; } print time;