Interaction Between the Results Pane and the Database

When you run a query or view, the database prepares the result set and returns the results to you.  If the result set contains many rows, they are returned to you in batches.  There are several details you should know about:

• The database runs the query in its entirety   The query processing on the database server is not run in batches.  Only the transmission of the query result from the server to your computer runs in batches.
  
  
• Unless you demand otherwise, only the first batch of results is returned   After the first batch of rows is returned to you, you can continue to work in other panes of the query or view.  If you want to view more rows of the result set, you can begin to scroll through the results pane to induce the database server to transmit more rows to your computer.

Some operations in the results pane require the entire result set   If you attempt to navigate to the last row of the result set, or if you edit a value within the result set, you effectively induce the database server to return the entire result set to you.  For an especially large result set, this can be time-consuming.