Writing Explicit Cursors

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

Distinguish between an implicit and an explicit cursor

Discuss when and why to use an explicit cursor Use a PL/SQL record variable Write a cursor FOR loop

6-2

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

About Cursors

Every SQL statement executed by the Oracle Server has an individual cursor associated with it:

Implicit cursors: Declared for all DML and PL/SQL SELECT statements

Explicit cursors: Declared and named by the programmer

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Explicit Cursor Functions

Table 100 King AD_PRES

Active set
Cursor

101 Kochhar AD_VP 102 De Haan AD_VP . . . . . .

.
ST_CLERK ST_CLERK .

139 Seo 140 Patel . .

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Controlling Explicit Cursors

No Yes EMPTY?

DECLARE

OPEN

FETCH

CLOSE

Create a
named SQL area

Identify
the active set

Load the
current row into variables

Test for
existing rows

Release
the active set

Return to
FETCH if rows are found

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Controlling Explicit Cursors

1. Open the cursor 2. Fetch a row 3. Close the Cursor

1. Open the cursor. Cursor pointer

6-6

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Controlling Explicit Cursors

1. Open the cursor 2. Fetch a row 3. Close the Cursor

2. Fetch a row using the cursor.

Cursor pointer
Continue until empty.

6-7

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Controlling Explicit Cursors

1. Open the cursor 2. Fetch a row 3. Close the Cursor

3. Close the cursor. Cursor pointer

6-8

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Declaring the Cursor

Syntax:
CURSOR cursor_name IS select_statement;

Do not include the INTO clause in the cursor declaration. If processing rows in a specific sequence is required, use the ORDER BY clause in the query.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Declaring the Cursor

Example:
DECLARE CURSOR emp_cursor IS SELECT employee_id, last_name FROM employees; CURSOR dept_cursor IS SELECT * FROM departments WHERE location_id = 170; BEGIN ...

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Opening the Cursor

Syntax:
OPEN cursor_name;

Open the cursor to execute the query and identify the active set. If the query returns no rows, no exception is raised. Use cursor attributes to test the outcome after a fetch.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Fetching Data from the Cursor

Syntax:
FETCH cursor_name INTO [variable1, variable2, ...] | record_name];

Retrieve the current row values into variables.

Include the same number of variables. Match each variable to correspond to the columns positionally. Test to see whether the cursor contains rows.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Fetching Data from the Cursor

Example:
LOOP FETCH emp_cursor INTO v_empno,v_ename; EXIT WHEN ...; ... -- Process the retrieved data END LOOP;

6-13

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Closing the Cursor

Syntax:
CLOSE cursor_name;

Close the cursor after completing the processing of the rows. Reopen the cursor, if required. Do not attempt to fetch data from a cursor after it has been closed.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Explicit Cursor Attributes

Obtain status information about a cursor.

Attribute %ISOPEN %NOTFOUND %FOUND Type Boolean Boolean Boolean Description Evaluates to TRUE if the cursor is open Evaluates to TRUE if the most recent fetch does not return a row Evaluates to TRUE if the most recent fetch returns a row; complement of %NOTFOUND Evaluates to the total number of rows returned so far

%ROWCOUNT

Number

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

The %ISOPEN Attribute

Fetch rows only when the cursor is open.

Use the %ISOPEN cursor attribute before performing a fetch to test whether the cursor is open.

Example:
IF NOT emp_cursor%ISOPEN THEN OPEN emp_cursor; END IF; LOOP FETCH emp_cursor...

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Controlling Multiple Fetches

Process several rows from an explicit cursor using a loop. Fetch a row with each iteration. Use explicit cursor attributes to test the success of each fetch.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

The %NOTFOUND and %ROWCOUNT Attributes

Use the %ROWCOUNT cursor attribute to retrieve an exact number of rows.

Use the %NOTFOUND cursor attribute to determine when to exit the loop.

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Example
DECLARE v_empno employees.employee_id%TYPE; v_ename employees.last_name%TYPE; CURSOR emp_cursor IS SELECT employee_id, last_name FROM employees; BEGIN OPEN emp_cursor; LOOP FETCH emp_cursor INTO v_empno, v_ename; EXIT WHEN emp_cursor%ROWCOUNT > 10 OR emp_cursor%NOTFOUND; DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (TO_CHAR(v_empno) ||' '|| v_ename); END LOOP; CLOSE emp_cursor; END ;

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Cursors and Records

Process the rows of the active set by fetching values into a PL/SQL RECORD.
DECLARE CURSOR emp_cursor IS SELECT employee_id, last_name FROM employees; emp_record emp_cursor%ROWTYPE; BEGIN OPEN emp_cursor; LOOP FETCH emp_cursor INTO emp_record; ... emp_record

employee_id 100

last_name King

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Cursor FOR Loops

Syntax:
FOR record_name IN cursor_name LOOP statement1; statement2; . . . END LOOP;

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The cursor FOR loop is a shortcut to process explicit cursors. Implicit open, fetch, exit, and close occur. The record is implicitly declared.
Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Cursor FOR Loops

Print a list of the employees who work for the sales department.
DECLARE CURSOR emp_cursor IS SELECT last_name, department_id FROM employees; BEGIN FOR emp_record IN emp_cursor LOOP -- implicit open and implicit fetch occur IF emp_record.department_id = 80 THEN ... END LOOP; -- implicit close occurs END; /

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Cursor FOR Loops Using Subqueries

No need to declare the cursor.

Example:
BEGIN FOR emp_record IN (SELECT last_name, department_id FROM employees) LOOP -- implicit open and implicit fetch occur IF emp_record.department_id = 80 THEN ... END LOOP; -- implicit close occurs END;

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Summary

In this lesson you should have learned to:

Distinguish cursor types:

Implicit cursors: used for all DML statements and single-row queries Explicit cursors: used for queries of zero, one, or more rows

Manipulate explicit cursors Evaluate the cursor status by using cursor attributes Use cursor FOR loops

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

Practice 6 Overview

This practice covers the following topics:

Declaring and using explicit cursors to query rows of a table Using a cursor FOR loop Applying cursor attributes to test the cursor status

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Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.