Cursor (databases)
In computer science and technology, a database cursor is a control structure that enables traversal over the records in a database. Cursors facilitate subsequent processing in conjunction with the traversal, such as retrieval, addition and removal of database records. The database cursor characteristic of traversal makes cursors akin to the programming language concept of iterator.
Cursors are used by database programmers to process individual rows returned by database system queries. Cursors enable manipulation of whole result sets at once—a capability that most procedural programming languages lack. In this scenario, a cursor enables the rows in a result set to be processed sequentially.
In SQL procedures, a cursor makes it possible to define a result set (a set of data rows) and perform complex logic on a row by row basis. By using the same mechanics, an SQL procedure can also define a result set and return it directly to the caller of the SQL procedure or to a client application.
A cursor can be viewed as a pointer to one row in a set of rows. The cursor can only reference one row at a time, but can move to other rows of the result set as needed.
Read more about Cursor (databases): Usage, Scrollable Cursors, "WITH HOLD", Positioned Update/delete Statements, Cursors in Distributed Transactions, Cursors in XQuery, Disadvantages of Cursors