A cursor FOR loop is designed to fetch all (multiple) rows from a cursor. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. > As alluded to in earlier threads, this is done by converting such > cursors to holdable automatically. The for loop can be used effectively and conveniently as per our necessity to loop around or execute certain statements repetitively. This is a guide to PostgreSQL For Loop. ; Second, the from and to are expressions that specify the lower and upper bound of the range. A special flag "auto-held" marks > such cursors, so we know to clean them up on exceptions. The record is the name of the index that the cursor FOR LOOP statement declares implicitly as a %ROWTYPE record variable of the type of the cursor.. Hopefully the … Example 7-42. All access to cursors in PL/pgSQL goes through cursor variables, which are always of the special data type refcursor.One way to create a cursor variable is just to declare it as a variable of type refcursor.Another way is to use the cursor declaration syntax, which in general is: Doesn’t this look silly: Example. In this syntax: First, the for loop creates an integer variable loop_counter which is accessible inside the loop only. Monkeygrind says: Nov 18, 2017 at 5:15 pm. By default, the for loop adds the step to the loop_counter after each iteration. Declaring Cursor Variables. I remember being advised against cursors once SQL 6.5 came out and finally got rid of them once we had table variables. On Tue, 20 Feb 2018 09:11:50 -0500 Peter Eisentraut <[hidden email]> wrote: > Here is a patch that allows COMMIT inside cursor loops in PL/pgSQL. Processing a result set using a cursor is similar to processing a result set using a FOR loop, but cursors offer a few distinct advantages that you'll see in a moment.. You can think of a cursor as a name for a result set. PostgreSQL cursor example. The record variable is local to the cursor FOR LOOP statement. If you're looking for the PostgreSQL equivalent of, for example, iterating through a result with a cursor on SQL Server, that's what it is. All access to cursors in PL/pgSQL goes through cursor variables, which are always of the special data type refcursor.One way to create a cursor variable is just to declare it as a variable of type refcursor.Another way is to use the cursor declaration syntax, which in general is: > I know from the documentation that the FOR implicitly opens a cursor, > but I'm wondering if there would be any performance advantages to > explicitly declaring a cursor and moving through it with FETCH commands? Declaring Cursor Variables. Example 7-42 begins a transaction block with the BEGIN keyword, and opens a cursor named all_books with SELECT * FROM books as its executed SQL statement. Direct cursor support is new in PL/pgSQL version 7.2. Recommended Articles. For prior versions, you need to create a function and select it. As of PostgreSQL 7.1.x, cursors may only be defined as READ ONLY, and the FOR clause is therefore superfluous. After the cursor FOR LOOP statement execution ends, the record variable becomes undefined. Might as well stick with the simpler notation. With PostgreSQL from 9.0, you can simply drop into executing plpgsql using a "DO" block. 40.7.1. Besides this, even the result set retrieved from a particular query can be iterated using for loop in PostgreSQL. Declaring a cursor 41.7.1. However, when you use the reverse option, the for loop subtracts the step from loop_counter. Cursors VS Loops ” Add yours. 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