DECLARE

Name

DECLARE  --  Defines a cursor for table access

Synopsis

DECLARE cursor [ BINARY ] [ INSENSITIVE ] [ SCROLL ]
    CURSOR FOR query
    [ FOR { READ ONLY | UPDATE [ OF column [, ...] ] ]
  

Inputs

cursor

The name of the cursor to be used in subsequent FETCH operations..

BINARY

Causes the cursor to fetch data in binary rather than in text format.

INSENSITIVE

SQL92 keyword indicating that data retrieved from the cursor should be unaffected by updates from other processes or cursors. Since cursor operations occur within transactions in Postgres this is always the case. This keyword has no effect.

SCROLL

SQL92 keyword indicating that data may be retrieved in multiple rows per FETCH operation. Since this is allowed at all times by Postgres this keyword has no effect.

query

An SQL query which will provide the rows to be governed by the cursor. Refer to the SELECT statement for further information about valid arguments.

READ ONLY

SQL92 keyword indicating that the cursor will be used in a readonly mode. Since this is the only cursor access mode available in Postgres this keyword has no effect.

UPDATE

SQL92 keyword indicating that the cursor will be used to update tables. Since cursor updates are not currently supported in Postgres this keyword provokes an informational error message.

column

Column(s) to be updated. Since cursor updates are not currently supported in Postgres the UPDATE clause provokes an informational error message.

Outputs

SELECT

The message returned if the SELECT is run successfully.

NOTICE BlankPortalAssignName: portal "cursor" already exists

This error occurs if cursor "cursor" is already declared.

ERROR: Named portals may only be used in begin/end transaction blocks

This error occurs if the cursor is not declared within a transaction block.

Description

DECLARE allows a user to create cursors, which can be used to retrieve a small number of rows at a time out of a larger query. Cursors can return data either in text or in binary foramt.

Normal cursors return data in text format, either ASCII or another encoding scheme depending on how the Postgres backend was built. Since data is stored natively in binary format, the system must do a conversion to produce the text format. In addition, text formats are often larger in size than the corresponding binary format. Once the information comes back in text form, the client application may have to convert it to a binary format to manipulate it anyway.

BINARY cursors give you back the data in the native binary representation. So binary cursors will tend to be a little faster since they suffer less conversion overhead.

As an example, if a query returns a value of one from an integer column, you would get a string of '1' with a default cursor whereas with a binary cursor you would get a 4-byte value equal to control-A ('^A').

Caution

BINARY cursors should be used carefully. User applications such as psql are not aware of binary cursors and expect data to come back in a text format.

However, string representation is architecture-neutral whereas binary representation can differ between different machine architectures. Therefore, if your client machine and server machine use different representations (e.g. "big-endian" versus "little-endian"), you will probably not want your data returned in binary format.

Tip: If you intend to display the data in ASCII, getting it back in ASCII will save you some effort on the client side.

Notes

Cursors are only available in transactions.

Postgres does not have an explicit OPEN cursor statement; a cursor is considered to be open when it is declared.

Note: In SQL92 cursors are only available in embedded applications. ecpg, the embedded SQL preprocessor for Postgres, supports the SQL92 conventions, including those involving DECLARE and OPEN statements.

Usage

To declare a cursor:

DECLARE liahona CURSOR
    FOR SELECT * FROM films;
  

Compatibility

SQL92

SQL92 allows cursors only in embedded SQL and in modules. Postgres permits cursors to be used interactively. SQL92 allows embedded or modular cursors to update database information. All Postgres cursors are readonly. The BINARY keyword is a Postgres extension.