hi @all,

i want to know a bit more about cursors and the technical way they are realized. my understanding is, that cursors are pointers on a result-set within the ram. the result-set is small (comparing to the table the rows are from) and the sql which perform the result-set is executed only one time (i hope :o) ), right?

So what we have is a small result-set within a location the cpu has the fastest way to grab rows from this result-set.

why should this cursors (used in for loops) not be more efficient than ordinary sql-queries (in for loops)?

ordinary queries grap the rows from the hard-disk, where the cpu needs more time to grap them. and erery time the sql-query is executed the a full table-scan must be performed to find the row.

abstract:

cursors (used in for loops):

- sql-query to get the result-set is executed one time, to make a result set (in the initialsation-part of procedure)

- one small result-set

- fastest way for a cpu to grap the data, because they are in the ram

ordinary queries (used in for loops):

- executed to get on row per query

- in every execution the whole table has to be scaned to get one row, so there is no result-set to crawl over

- no fast way for the cpu to grap the data, because data is on harddrive

what du you think about what my understanding of cursors is. am i right?

please let me know.

cheers tommy