Hi I have following table: CREATE TABLE alias ( alias_id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY, mask VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '', ); with index: CREATE INDEX alias_mask_ind ON alias(mask); and this table has about 1 million rows. In DB procedure I execute: LOOP <........> OPEN cursor1 FOR SELECT * FROM alias WHERE mask>=alias_out ORDER BY mask; i:=0; LOOP i:=i+1; FETCH cursor1 INTO alias_row; EXIT WHEN i=10; END LOOP; CLOSE cursor1; EXIT WHEN end_number=10000; END LOOP; Such construction is very slow (20 sec. per one iteration) but when I modify SQL to: OPEN cursor1 FOR SELECT * FROM alias WHERE mask>=alias_out ORDER BY mask LIMIT 100; it works very fast(whole program executes in 4-7s). It is strange for me becuase I've understood so far that when cursor is open select is executed but Postgres does not select all rows - only cursor is positioned on first row, when you execute fetch next row is read. But this example shows something different. Can somebody clarify what is wrong with my example? I need select without LIMIT 100 part. Regards Michal Szymanski http://blog.szymanskich.net