Using Cursor is good practice?

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Dear Friends,

In one website I have learnt that, using Cursor is not good practice.
Is it so. If yes then what is the alternate to use Cursor.

Regards,
AP

Posted 25-May-12 17:45pm

Arunprasath Natarajan

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-May-12 0:28am

I would rather agree with this statement, but the question "what is the alternative to using cursor?" it not quite valid. The trivial answer would be "not using cursor". :-)
This question is not quite valid, because you first need to point out the particular situation (problem, application) which as you think requires the use of cursor and ask about the alternative. Without such example, there is nothing to discuss.
--SA

Arunprasath Natarajan 26-May-12 8:23am

Thank you sir, I will come back to you with a eg.

Sandeep Mewara 29-May-12 1:14am

:)

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Sandeep Mewara · Answer 1 · 2012-05-25T18:59:00

Cursors take up memory and create locks. They incur a performance penalty most of the times.
AFAIK, Alternative suggested is Table variable in a while loop.

See this: Increase your SQL Server performance by replacing cursors with set operations[^]
Cursor Performance[^]

Similar discussions here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/287445/why-do-people-hate-sql-cursors-so-much[^]
Why is it considered bad practice to use cursors in SQL Server?[^]
MS SQL Server - When is a CURSOR good?[^]

Wendelius · Answer 2 · 2012-05-25T21:20:00

Solution 3

The problem with cursors is that they are resource consuming and slow. So whenever possible you should use set based approach i.e. SELECT statement.