Cursors
Here’s my preferred syntax for a simple one-way readonly cursor:
It uses the @variable syntax just because I find it weird in SQL Server to use a variable without the @ symbol. I don’t know if there are any meaningful differences in doing it this way, but this just feels more natural to me.
Many people will fetch upfront, then do a while @@fetch_status <> 0, and then fetch again at the end of the loop body. This example avoids that by fetching inside an infinite loop, and breaking when it stops fetching records.
declare @cur cursor; set @cur = cursor local fast_forward for select * from ( select 1 [a] union select 2 union select 3 ) x where x.a > 0; declare @a int; open @cur; while 1 = 1 begin fetch next from @cur into @a; if @@fetch_status <> 0 break; print @a; -- do stuff end; close @cur; deallocate @cur;