Oracle Cursors with .Net

[emeshuris]

Hi,
I am having an argument with our DBA, he is under the impression that
it is the .net api always opens a cursor.
However I believe that Oracle always opens a cursor for any select
statement.
Can someone shed some light?
Regardless of what the answer is, why is it that oracle relies so
heavily on cursors?

-Edward

 

[Miha Markic]

Perhaps I am getting this wrong, but I think Oracle and other DBs always use
cursors for doing selects regardless of the client.

 

[emeshuris]

Well, I did search for SQL Cursors, and I believe that SQL uses them
less.

-Edward

 

[Crisatunity (blog.crisatunity.com)]

Hi,
I am having an argument with our DBA, he is under the impression that
it is the .net api always opens a cursor.
However I believe that Oracle always opens a cursor for any select
statement.
Can someone shed some light?
Regardless of what the answer is, why is it that oracle relies so
heavily on cursors?

-Edward

Your DBA is wrong. Cursors are essentially pointers. The database
uses cursors for every SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. This has
nothing whatsoever to with .NET. Through the use of cursor variables
some forms of cursors can be exposed to .NET code for highly efficient
(because just the pointer is concerned) inter-procedure calls.

I believe SQL Server must have a similar use of cursors, however I'm
not sure its interface ever exposes them for consumption by external
procedures, like .NET code.