A method and system are described in a data processing system including a
database for efficiently retrieving copies of data rows from the database.
Query criteria is received by a server from a client which specifies
search criteria describing data rows and which requests a particular
number of the data rows to return. Each of the data rows is associated
with a unique primary key which uniquely identifies a particular data
object. The primary key for each of the data rows meeting the specified
criteria is first retrieved from the database by the server. Thereafter,
copies of only the particular number of the data rows are retrieved from
the database using the primary keys. Copies of only the particular number
of data rows are then returned to the requesting client.
