Explain cursor types?

There are two types of PL/SQL cursors -

Explicit cursors– Explicit cursors are used for queries that return more than one row. It is a programmer-defined cursor for gaining more control over context area. In order to use explicit cursors, the following steps are used-

Declare the cursor,

Syntax: CURSOR <cursor_name> is

SELECT statement;

Here, cursor name is the name given to the cursor and SELECT is used for returning rows to cursor active set.

Open the cursor

Syntax: OPEN <cursor_name>

Where <cursor_name> is name of previously-defined cursor.

Fetch rows from the cursor

Syntax: FETCH <cursor_name> INTO <record_list>

Close the cursor

Syntax: CLOSE <cursor_name>

Implicit cursors- These cursors are created when any SQL statements are executed. PL/SQL uses following implicit cursors-

• INSERT
• UPDATE
• DELETE
• SELECT