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9.7.2 Opening Cursors

Before a cursor can be used to retrieve rows, it must be opened. (This is the equivalent action to the SQL command DECLARE CURSOR.) PL/pgSQL has three forms of the OPEN statement, two of which use unbound cursor variables while the third uses a bound cursor variable.

Note: Bound cursor variables can also be used without explicitly opening the cursor, via the FOR statement described in section 9.7.4 Looping Through a Cursor's Result.