What is the difference between REF Cursor & Normal Cursor?

What is the difference between REF Cursor & Normal Cursor?

Ans:

In case of an normal explict cursor, the SQL query has to be defined at the time of declaring the cursor itself. In case of REF Cursor, the cursor declartion is not associated with any SQL query, it is associated with a query at a later stage this brings in a lot of flexibility as different SQL queries can be associated with the cursor (one at a time, offcourse) programatically. REF Cursors also provide the feature of passing parameters. Though there is something dynamic with REF Cursor when compared to a normal explicit cursor, it is not a truly perfect dynamic cursor. Truly perfect dynamic cursors are the one constructed using DBMS_SQL package.

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