Peter Hansen (4/14/2009)

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I've read a number of "get rid of cursors" articles. None of them have addressed the issues that I have faced (and solved) with cursors. Perhaps this series will be different, I would certainly love to pick up some new ways to approach the sort of complex problems that appear in the real world.

I recently completed a very complex bit of code that has three nested cursors. The horror! The fact is that it works well because I have limited the number of rows (the outer cursor processes a few hundred rows, the inner cursors a handful). The specific nature of the problem I solved had to do with complex business logic that needed to be applied to each row, with a series of cascading rules. One other major issue I have is that I believe that code needs to be easy to understand. One issue I have with set-based coding is that it tends to obfuscate the logic when things get to be complex. In some cases, cursors have a readability advantage.

I come from a procedural background, that certainly colors my view of the world. But I am wary of those who proclaim that any given technique is universally bad. Almost 40 years or writing code in various forms has taught me that there are mutiple approaches to any given problem, each with trade-offs. The real skill of programming is to pick the best approach. At times, cursors are that best approach.

It must be mentioned that my environment is Sybase (and an old version at that!), not SQL Server. Living in this relatively primitive environment I can't take advantage of the latest features. We often have to make do with what we have.

Peter Hansen