Stairway to Advanced T-SQL

Stairway to Advanced T-SQL Level 4: Record Level Processing Using Transact-SQL Cursors

Using a CURSOR is not normally the best way to process through a set of records. Yet when a seasoned programmer moves to writing TSQL for the first time they frequently look for ways to process a sets of records one row at a time. They do this because they are not used to thinking about processing records as a set. In order to process through a TSQL record set a row at a time you can use a cursor. A cursor is a record set that is defined with the DECLARE CURSOR statement. Cursors can be defined as either read-only or updatable. In this article I will introduce you to using cursors to do record level processing one row at a time.

Blogs

Webinar: Navigating the Database Landscape in 2026

By

For a number of years, we’ve produced the State of the Database Landscape report,...

Claude AI Convinced Me Not to Build an iPad App

By

I coach volleyball and I do a lot of stat stuff on paper. I...

A New Word: Dolorblindness

By

dolorblindness – n. the frustration that you’ll never be able to understand another person’s...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

SSMS 22 Latest Update Crashing

By Phil Parkin

Hi all, I've just had to roll back my SSMS 22 version from 22.3.0,...

Transactional Replication setup issue

By DrAzure

Hi! I've been banging my head against the wall for 2 days now trying...

The Power of Data and Privacy

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Power of Data and...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

What's the Date?

In SQL Server 2025, there is a new function that returns the current date without the time. What is it?

See possible answers