CURSOR Type

Sometimes it is necessary to use the cursor, as we know that the cursor is a big performance killer and we always avoid it. But we can save some performance degradation if we know the type of cursor very well.

This article illustrates the cursor type used in SQL Server. Proper use of cursor type is necessary for increase the performance and for operational use.

The cursor type is declared when we declare the cursor. There are 5 types of cursor mentioned bellow.

STATIC

Static cursor is a fixed snapshot of a set of rows. This fixed snapshot is stored is a temporary database (tempdb). As the cursor is used private snapshot any changes to the set of rows external will not visible in the cursor while browsing through it.

Syntax:

DECLARE <cursor_name> CURSOR STATIC

        FOR   SELECT *

              FROM   <Table_name>

              WHERE  <Conditions>

KEYSET

In KEYSET the key value of the rows are saved in tempdb. For instance let’s says the cursor has faced the following bellow data. So only the “supplierid” will be stored in tha databse. Any new instance happening is not reflected in the cursor. But any updated in the keyset values are reflected in the cursor. Because the cursor is identified by key values we can also absolutely fatches them using “FETCH ABSOLUTE 12 FROM mycursor”

DYNAMIC

In dynamic cursor you can see any kind of changes happening. That means inserting new records or changing the existing records and even record deletions. That’s why the dynamic cursor are slow and have least performance.

FORWARD_ONLY

As the name suggest they only move forward and only a one time featch is done. In every fetch the cursor is evaluated. That means any changes to the data are known, until we have specified “STATIC” or “KEYSET”

FAST_FORWARD

This type of cursor is forward only and read-only in every fetch they are not re-evaluted again. This make them a good choice to increase performance.

GLOBAL and LOCAL cursors

GLOBAL are global for a connection. By default cursor are global. That means you can declare a cursor in one stored procedure and access it outside also.

Locate cursor are accessable only inside the object(SP or Trigger or Function).

We can declare a cursor as LOCAL or GLOBAL in the DECLARE cursor sysntax.

Syntax:

DECLARE <cursor_name> CURSOR [ LOCAL | GLOBAL ]

[ STATIC | KEYSET | DYNAMIC | FORWARD_ONLY  | FAST_FORWARD ]

        FOR   SELECT *

              FROM   <Table_name>

              WHERE  <Conditions>

Hope you like it.

Posted by: MR. JOYDEEP DAS