An ANSI/ISO SQL-92 feature, scrollable cursors are database query result sets that are maintained in the database server as long as the cursor is open and that allow the user to retrieve rows of a result set in any sequence. The number of elements of the result set is easily determined by the application that is using the cursor.

Scrollable cursors greatly ease the display of information, for example, in scrolling web applications.

Scrollable cursors allow an application to move backward and forward through the query results faster. Because scrollable cursors require more overhead than non-scrollable cursors, you should deploy scrollable cursors only where your application requires it.

The scrollable cursor can be declared as either a static or keyset type.

Static scrollable cursors are read only. The complete result set is stored in an internal temporary table.

Keyset scrollable cursors are updatable. Only the key columns and tids of the result set are stored in an internal temporary table

Scrollable cursors are supported in Ingres OpenAPI and JDBC.

For more information, see the OpenAPI User Guide, and the Connectivity Guide.