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9.7.2.3 Opening a Bound Cursor

OPEN bound_cursorvar [ ( argument_values ) ];

This form of OPEN is used to open a cursor variable whose query was bound to it when it was declared. The cursor cannot be open already. A list of actual argument value expressions must appear if and only if the cursor was declared to take arguments. These values will be substituted in the query. The query plan for a bound cursor is always considered cacheable; there is no equivalent of EXECUTE in this case. Notice that SCROLL and NO SCROLL cannot be specified, as the cursor's scrolling behavior was already determined.

Note that because variable substitution is done on the bound cursor's query, there are two ways to pass values into the cursor: either with an explicit argument to OPEN, or implicitly by referencing a PL/pgSQL variable in the query. However, only variables declared before the bound cursor was declared will be substituted into it. In either case the value to be passed is determined at the time of the OPEN.

Examples:

OPEN curs2;
OPEN curs3(42);