Accessing tuples sequentially

I am developing a PL/SQL program that is required to read a huge Oracle table in a particular order, say in order of increasing values for a particular attribute.

Now there exists an index on this attribute (a single attribute index).

I know a can easily use the 'order by statement' at the end of the select but I think this actually does a sort on that same attribute. Since its a very huge table I would like to avoid this sort.

Logically, since there is an index on the attribute, I am requesting the tuple in the order of the index.

Can anyone help by explaining how I can accesses all tuples in a table in the order of an index created on that table, without having Oracle actually do the unnecessary 'order by'.

Thanks,

J M Camilleri Received on Sun Oct 19 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT