Cursor and Ref cursor

Difference Between Cursor And Ref Cursor

In this post I am trying to detail out the differences between Cursor and Ref Cursors. I am sure, this question has been asked in many interviews to many of us and it also has its own technical weightage. Lets first check the basic example of Cursor and Ref Cursors. In this post Cursor means PL/SQL Cursors only.

Example of Cursor:

declare    
    cursor c1 is select ename, sal from scott.emp;
begin    
    for c in c1 
    loop
        dbms_output.put_line('Ename: ' || c.ename || ', Salary: ' || c.sal);
    end loop;
end;
/

Example of Ref Cursor

declare    
    c1 SYS_REFCURSOR;
    ename varchar2(10);
    sal number;
begin
    open c1 for select ename, sal from scott.emp;
    LOOP 
        FETCH c1 into ename, sal;
            EXIT WHEN c1%NOTFOUND;
        dbms_output.put_line('Ename: ' || ename || ', Salary: ' || sal);
    END LOOP;
    close c1;    
end;
/