A cursor in Oracle is a pointer to a context area that holds rows returned by an SQL statement, with two types: implicit and explicit. Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle, while explicit cursors are defined by programmers for more control over data retrieval. The document outlines the steps for working with explicit cursors, their attributes, and provides syntax and examples for using both explicit and FOR loop cursor statements.
A cursor in Oracle is a pointer to a context area that holds rows returned by an SQL statement, with two types: implicit and explicit. Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle, while explicit cursors are defined by programmers for more control over data retrieval. The document outlines the steps for working with explicit cursors, their attributes, and provides syntax and examples for using both explicit and FOR loop cursor statements.
A cursor in Oracle is a pointer to a context area that holds rows returned by an SQL statement, with two types: implicit and explicit. Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle, while explicit cursors are defined by programmers for more control over data retrieval. The document outlines the steps for working with explicit cursors, their attributes, and provides syntax and examples for using both explicit and FOR loop cursor statements.
A cursor in Oracle is a pointer to a context area that holds rows returned by an SQL statement, with two types: implicit and explicit. Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle, while explicit cursors are defined by programmers for more control over data retrieval. The document outlines the steps for working with explicit cursors, their attributes, and provides syntax and examples for using both explicit and FOR loop cursor statements.
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CURSOR :
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Oracle creates a memory area, known as the context area, for processing an SQL statement.
A cursor is a pointer to this context area. PL/SQL controls the context area through a cursor. A cursor holds the rows (one or more) returned by a SQL statement.
The set of rows the cursor holds is referred to as the active set.
Why we go for -> whenever we are fetching data, we need to store the fetched data in a variable. By using a cursor, you can use the same variables (or a record type) to hold the data.
Implicit Cursor : ---------------
Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle whenever an SQL statement is
executed, when there is no explicit cursor for the statement. Programmers cannot control the implicit cursors and the information in it.
Explicit Cursor : ---------------- Explicit cursors are programmer-defined cursors for gaining more control over the context area. An explicit cursor should be defined in the declaration section of the PL/SQL Block. It is created on a SELECT Statement which returns more than one row.
Working with an explicit cursor includes the following steps :
Closing the cursor to release the allocated memory.
Cursor Attributes : -------------------
Both Implicit cursor and the explicit cursor has certain attributes that can be accessed. These attributes give more information about the cursor operations. Below are the different cursor attributes and their usage.
Syntax : -------- DECLARE CURSOR cursor_name IS select_statement; cur_variable cursor_name%rowtype; BEGIN OPEN cursor_name; FETCH cursor_name INTO cur_variable; CLOSE cursor_name; END;
Example Program : ----------------
DECLARE CURSOR guru99_det IS SELECT emp_name FROM emp; lv_emp_name emp.emp_name%type; BEGIN OPEN guru99_det; LOOP FETCH guru99_det INTO lv_emp_name; IF guru99_det%NOTFOUND THEN EXIT; END IF; Dbms_output.put_line(‘Employee Fetched:‘||lv_emp_name); END LOOP; Dbms_output.put_line(‘Total rows fetched is‘||guru99_det%R0WCOUNT); CLOSE guru99_det; END: /
For Loop Cursor Statement :
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"FOR LOOP" statement can be used for working with cursors. We can give the cursor name instead of range limit in the FOR loop statement so that the loop will work from the first record of the cursor to the last record of the cursor.
Why we go for? The cursor variable, opening of cursor, fetching and closing of the cursor will be done implicitly by the FOR loop.
Syntax : -------- DECLARE CURSOR <cursor_name> IS <SELECT statement>; BEGIN FOR I IN <cursor_name> LOOP . . . . . END LOOP; END;
