Chapter 3. Designing PL/SQL Code

The structure of a PL/SQL block is one of the elementary components of PL/SQL as it showcases its modeling capabilities. It enables users to declare variables, include procedural constructs in the executable section, and embed exception management within the program.

All SQL statements within a PL/SQL block are executed as a cursor. Cursors are PL/SQL constructs that enable interaction with the data within a PL/SQL block. Cursor designing is an important skill in PL/SQL programming as it impacts the data access paradigm and also code performance. In this chapter, we are going to focus our discussion on cursors. Here is the chapter outline:

• Cursor fundamentals
  1. How cursors work?
  2. Implicit and explicit cursors
  3. Cursor attributes
  4. Cursor design guidelines
• Cursor variables
• Implicit REF CURSOR parameter binding
• Introduction to subtypes