In computer science, a database cursor is a mechanism that enables traversal over the records in a database. Cursors facilitate processing in conjunction with the traversal, such as retrieval, addition and removal of database records. The database cursor characteristic of traversal makes cursors akin to the programming language concept of iterator.

Cursors are used by database programmers to process individual rows returned by database system queries. Cursors enable manipulation of whole result sets at once. In this scenario, a cursor enables the sequential processing of rows in a result set.

In SQL procedures, a cursor makes it possible to define a result set (a set of data rows) and perform complex logic on a row by row basis. By using the same mechanics, a SQL procedure can also define a result set and return it directly to the caller of the SQL procedure or to a client application.

A cursor can be viewed as a pointer to one row in a set of rows. The cursor can only reference one row at a time, but can move to other rows of the result set as needed.

To use cursors in SQL procedures, you need to do the following:

To work with cursors you must use the following SQL statements

This section introduces the ways the SQL:2003 standard defines how to use cursors in applications in embedded SQL. Not all application bindings for relational database systems adhere to that standard, and some (such as CLI or JDBC) use a different interface.

A programmer makes a cursor known to the DBMS by using a DECLARE ... CURSOR statement and assigning the cursor a (compulsory) name: