In an exemplary embodiment of this disclosure, a computer-implemented method includes determining that a database query warrants a first projection operation to project a plurality of input rows to a plurality of projected rows, where each of the plurality of input rows has one or more variable-length columns. A first projection control block is constructed, by a computer processor, to describe the first projection operation. The first projection operation is offloaded to a hardware accelerator. The first projection control block is provided to the hardware accelerator, and the first projection control block enables the hardware accelerator to perform the first projection operation at streaming rate.