Cursors

How to step through the returned

set of rows
 Selected set
• When a Select statement is issued, the
returned set is a set of rows.
• To step through, or process the rows in
the set, it is necessary to be able to look at
each one in turn.
• A CURSOR allows the user to iterate
through the returned set.
 Managing explicit cursors
• The cursor can be declared in any part of
a PL/SQL block, subprogram or package.
• Within the program body, the cursor can
be OPENed, FETCHed and CLOSEd.
• A cursor cannot be assigned a value or
set of values – it must get its contents from
a select statement.
 Declaring a cursor
CURSOR cursor_name [(parameter[,
parameter]…)]
[RETURN return_type] IS
select_statement;
• Where
– return_type is a record or row in a database table
– Parameter is defined as:
cursor_parameter)name [IN] datatype [{:= |
DEFAULT} expression]
 Example cursor declaration
DECLARE
CURSOR lateOrd IS
SELECT supplierorderno, (delivereddate –
supplierOrderDate) from sorder where
(delivereddate – supplierOrderDate) > 5 or
delivereddate is null;
• This cursor will contain a set of rows of supplier
orders that either took more than 5 days to
deliver, or have not been delivered.
• The scope of the cursor is the scope of the block
in which it is declared.
 Declaring the cursor with
parameters
DECLARE
nodays integer;
CURSOR lateOrd IS
SELECT supplierorderno, (delivereddate –
supplierOrderDate) from sorder where
(delivereddate – supplierOrderDate) >
nodays or delivereddate is null;
 Opening and closing the cursor
DECLARE
CURSOR lateOrd IS SELECT …
…
BEGIN
OPEN lateOrd;
…
CLOSE lateOrd;
END;
This opens the cursor, but doesn’t fill it.
If it is a parameterised cursor, it could be:
OPEN lateOrd(3);
 Fetching the cursor
DECLARE
CURSOR lateOrd IS
SELECT
supplierorderno, (delivereddate - supplierOrderDate)
from sorder
where (delivereddate - supplierOrderDate) > 5
or delivereddate is null;
LocOrdNo sOrder.SupplierORDERNO%Type;
DaysLate Integer;
BEGIN
OPEN lateOrd;
LOOP
FETCH lateOrd into LocOrdNo, DaysLate;
EXIT WHEN lateOrd%NOTFOUND;
dbms_output.put_line
('Order number '||LocOrdNo||' was delivered '||DaysLate||' days
late.');
End Loop;
Close LateOrd;
END;
 Fetching
• Fetch retrieves the rows one at a time
from the result set.
• The named exceptions relating to cursors
are:
– %found, %notfound, %rowcount and
%isopen.
– These do not automatically raise an
exception, so you must test for them.
 Cursor loop
Open LateOrd;
LOOP
FETCH lateOrd INTO LocOrdNo,
DaysLate;
dbms_output.put_line (lateOrd%rowcount||’.
Order number ’||LocOrdNo||’ was ‘||
DaysLate||’ days late.’);
END LOOP;
Dbms_output.put_line (‘Altogether, there
were || LateOrd%rowcount||’ late orders’);
Close LateOrd;
• This numbers the late orders.
 Other Cursor qualities
• The implicit For loop can open the
cursor, fetch each item individually and
then close it (see next slide).
• Instead of having to itemise the columns
in the table, we can declare a cursor row
type:
• Declare
• cursor s1 is …
s1_rec s1%rowtype;
 Cursors for update
• I want to up the cost price of all stock items that are
supplied by supplier number 101 by 10%.
Declare
cursor s1 is
select * from stock where supplier_Id = 501 for
update;
s1_rec s1%rowtype;
Begin
for s1_rec in s1 loop
update stock
set unitcostprice = unitcostprice * 1.1
where current of s1;
end loop;
commit;
End;