Out of memory error on huge resultset

I'm selecting a huge ResultSet from our database- about one million rows,
with one of the fields being varchar(500). I get an out of memory error from
java.

If the whole ResultSet gets stashed in memory, this isn't really surprising,
but I'm wondering why this happens (if it does), rather than a subset around
the current record being cached and other rows being retrieved as needed.

If it turns out that there are good reasons for it to all be in memory, then
my question is whether there is a better approach that people typically use
in this situation. For now, I'm simply breaking up the select into smaller
chunks, but that approach won't be satisfactory in the long run.

Thanks

-Nick

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Nick Fankhauser  nickf@ontko.com  Phone 1.765.935.4283  Fax 1.765.962.9788
Ray Ontko & Co.     Software Consulting Services     http://www.ontko.com/