K. J.

Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai-77

(Autonomous College Affiliated to University of Mumbai)

Batch: B1 Roll No.: 16010120071

Experiment / assignment / tutorial No. 6

Grade: AA / AB / BB / BC / CC / CD /DD

Title: Implementing procedures and cursors

Objective: To be able to Implementing procedures.

Expected Outcome of Experiment:

CO 3: Use SQL for Relational database creation, maintenance and query processing

Books/ Journals/ Websites referred:

1. Dr. P.S. Deshpande, SQL and PL/SQL for Oracle 10g.Black book, Dreamtech Press
2. www.db-book.com
3. Korth, Slberchatz, Sudarshan : “Database Systems Concept”, 5th Edition , McGraw
Hill
4. Elmasri and Navathe,”Fundamentals of database Systems”, 4th Edition,PEARSON
Education.

Resources used: Postgresql

Theory

A stored procedure is a set of Structured Query Language (SQL) statements with an

assigned name, which are stored in a relational database management system as a group,
so it can be reused and shared by multiple programs.
Stored procedures can access or modify data in a database, but it is not tied to a specific
database or object, which offers a number of advantages.

Benefits of using stored procedures

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A stored procedure provides an important layer of security between the user interface
and the database. It supports security through data access controls because end users may
enter or change data, but do not write procedures. A stored procedure preserves data
integrity because information is entered in a consistent manner. It improves productivity
because statements in a stored procedure only must be written once.
Use of stored procedures can reduce network traffic between clients and servers, because
the commands are executed as a single batch of code. This means only the call to execute
the procedure is sent over a network, instead of every single line of code being sent
individually.

Syntax:
CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] PROCEDURE
name ( [ [ argmode ] [ argname ] argtype [ { DEFAULT | = }
default_expr ] [, ...] ] )
{ LANGUAGE lang_name
| TRANSFORM { FOR TYPE type_name } [, ... ]
| [ EXTERNAL ] SECURITY INVOKER | [ EXTERNAL ] SECURITY
DEFINER
| SET configuration_parameter { TO value | = value | FROM
CURRENT }
| AS 'definition'
| AS 'obj_file', 'link_symbol'
} ...

Parameters
Name: The name (optionally schema-qualified) of the procedure to create.
Argmode: The mode of an argument: IN, INOUT, or VARIADIC. If omitted, the default
is IN. (OUT arguments are currently not supported for procedures. Use INOUT instead.)
Argname: The name of an argument.
Argtype: The data type(s) of the procedure's arguments (optionally schema-qualified),
if any. The argument types can be base, composite, or domain types, or can reference the
type of a table column.
Depending on the implementation language it might also be allowed to specify “pseudo-
types” such as cstring. Pseudo-types indicate that the actual argument type is either
incompletely specified, or outside the set of ordinary SQL data types.

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The type of a column is referenced by writing table_name.column_name%TYPE. Using

this feature can sometimes help make a procedure independent of changes to the
definition of a table.
default_expr: An expression to be used as default value if the parameter is not specified.
The expression has to be coercible to the argument type of the parameter. All input
parameters following a parameter with a default value must have default values as well.
lang_name :The name of the language that the procedure is implemented in. It can be
sql, c, internal, or the name of a user-defined procedural language, e.g. plpgsql. Enclosing
the name in single quotes is deprecated and requires matching case.

TRANSFORM { FOR TYPE type_name } [, ... ] }

Lists which transforms a call to the procedure should apply. Transforms convert between
SQL types and language-specific data types; see CREATE TRANSFORM. Procedural
language implementations usually have hardcoded knowledge of the built-in types, so
those don't need to be listed here. If a procedural language implementation does not know
how to handle a type and no transform is supplied, it will fall back to a default behavior
for converting data types, but this depends on the implementation.
[EXTERNAL] SECURITY INVOKER
[EXTERNAL] SECURITY DEFINER
SECURITY INVOKER indicates that the procedure is to be executed with the
privileges of the user that calls it. That is the default. SECURITY DEFINER specifies
that the procedure is to be executed with the privileges of the user that owns it.
The key word EXTERNAL is allowed for SQL conformance, but it is optional since,
unlike in SQL, this feature applies to all procedures not only external ones.
A SECURITY DEFINER procedure cannot execute transaction control statements (for
example, COMMIT and ROLLBACK, depending on the language).
configuration_parameter
value: The SET clause causes the specified configuration parameter to be set to the
specified value when the procedure is entered, and then restored to its prior value when
the procedure exits. SET FROM CURRENT saves the value of the parameter that is
current when CREATE PROCEDURE is executed as the value to be applied when the
procedure is entered.

If a SET clause is attached to a procedure, then the effects of a SET LOCAL command
executed inside the procedure for the same variable are restricted to the procedure: the

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configuration parameter's prior value is still restored at procedure exit. However, an

ordinary SET command (without LOCAL) overrides the SET clause, much as it would
do for a previous SET LOCAL command: the effects of such a command will persist
after procedure exit, unless the current transaction is rolled back.
If a SET clause is attached to a procedure, then that procedure cannot execute transaction
control statements (for example, COMMIT and ROLLBACK, depending on the
language).
Definition
A string constant defining the procedure; the meaning depends on the language. It can be
an internal procedure name, the path to an object file, an SQL command, or text in a
procedural language.
It is often helpful to use dollar quoting to write the procedure definition string, rather
than the normal single quote syntax. Without dollar quoting, any single quotes or
backslashes in the procedure definition must be escaped by doubling them.
obj_file, link_symbol
This form of the AS clause is used for dynamically loadable C language procedures when
the procedure name in the C language source code is not the same as the name of the
SQL procedure. The string obj_file is the name of the shared library file containing the
compiled C procedure, and is interpreted as for the LOAD command. The string
link_symbol is the procedure's link symbol, that is, the name of the procedure in the C
language source code. If the link symbol is omitted, it is assumed to be the same as the
name of the SQL procedure being defined.

When repeated CREATE PROCEDURE calls refer to the same object file, the file is only
loaded once per session. To unload and reload the file (perhaps during development),
start a new session.
Example:
We will use the following accounts table for the demonstration:

CREATE TABLE accounts (

id INT GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY,
name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
balance DEC(15,2) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
);

INSERT INTO accounts(name,balance)

VALUES('Bob',10000);

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INSERT INTO accounts(name,balance)

VALUES('Alice',10000);

The following example creates stored procedure named transfer that transfer specific
amount of money from one account to another.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE transfer(INT, INT, DEC)
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $$
BEGIN
-- subtracting the amount from the sender's account
UPDATE accounts
SET balance = balance - $3
WHERE id = $1;

-- adding the amount to the receiver's account

UPDATE accounts
SET balance = balance + $3
WHERE id = $2;

COMMIT;
END;
$$;

CALL stored_procedure_name(parameter_list);
CALL transfer(1,2,1000);

Cursors
Rather than executing a whole query at once, it is possible to set up a cursor that
encapsulates the query, and then read the query result a few rows at a time. One reason
for doing this is to avoid memory overrun when the result contains a large number of
rows. (However, PL/pgSQL users do not normally need to worry about that, since FOR
loops automatically use a cursor internally to avoid memory problems.) A more
interesting usage is to return a reference to a cursor that a function has created, allowing
the caller to read the rows. This provides an efficient way to return large row sets from
functions.
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.
OPEN FOR query
Syntax: OPEN unbound_cursorvar [ [ NO ] SCROLL ] FOR query;
example:

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OPEN curs1 FOR SELECT * FROM foo WHERE key = mykey;

OPEN FOR EXECUTE
Syntax: OPEN unbound_cursorvar [ [ NO ] SCROLL ] FOR EXECUTE query_string
[ USING expression [, ... ] ];
example:

OPEN curs1 FOR EXECUTE 'SELECT * FROM ' || quote_ident(tabname)

|| ' WHERE col1 = $1' USING keyvalue;

Opening a Bound Cursor

Syntax: OPEN bound_cursorvar [ ( [ argument_name := ] argument_value [, ...] ) ];

Examples (these use the cursor declaration examples above):

OPEN curs2;
OPEN curs3(42);
OPEN curs3(key := 42);
Because variable substitution is done on a bound cursor's query, there are really 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. For example, another way to get the same
effect as the curs3 example above is
DECLARE
key integer;
curs4 CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE unique1 = key;
BEGIN
key := 42;
OPEN curs4;

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Using Cursors
FETCH
Synatx: FETCH [ direction { FROM | IN } ] cursor INTO target;
Examples:

FETCH curs1 INTO rowvar;

FETCH curs2 INTO foo, bar, baz;
FETCH LAST FROM curs3 INTO x, y;
FETCH RELATIVE -2 FROM curs4 INTO x;
MOVE
MOVE [ direction { FROM | IN } ] cursor;
MOVE repositions a cursor without retrieving any data. MOVE works exactly like the
FETCH command, except it only repositions the cursor and does not return the row
moved to. As with SELECT INTO, the special variable FOUND can be checked to see
whether there was a next row to move to.
Examples:

MOVE curs1;
MOVE LAST FROM curs3;
MOVE RELATIVE -2 FROM curs4;
MOVE FORWARD 2 FROM curs4;
UPDATE/DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF
UPDATE table SET ... WHERE CURRENT OF cursor;
DELETE FROM table WHERE CURRENT OF cursor;
When a cursor is positioned on a table row, that row can be updated or deleted using the
cursor to identify the row. There are restrictions on what the cursor's query can be (in
particular, no grouping) and it's best to use FOR UPDATE in the cursor. For more
information see the DECLARE reference page.
An example:
UPDATE foo SET dataval = myval WHERE CURRENT OF curs1;
CLOSE

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CLOSE cursor;
CLOSE closes the portal underlying an open cursor. This can be used to release resources
earlier than end of transaction, or to free up the cursor variable to be opened again.
An example:
CLOSE curs1;

Implementation Screenshots (Problem Statement, Query and Screenshots of

Results):

Using function to find total no of colleges

Code:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION cip.totalRecords()

RETURNS integer AS $total$
declare
total integer;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*) into total FROM cip.college;
RETURN total;
END;
$total$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

SELECT cip.totalRecords();

Output:

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Cursors:
1. User-defined cursors
Code:
REATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION cip.function_1(refcursor) RETURNS refcursor AS
$$
BEGIN
OPEN $1 FOR SELECT * FROM cip.college;
RETURN $1;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

SELECT cip.functio('myowncursorname');
fetch all from "myowncursorname";

output:

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2. Inbuilt cursors
Code:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION cip.function_1() RETURNS refcursor AS $$
DECLARE
ref_cursor REFCURSOR := 'mycursor';
BEGIN
OPEN ref_cursor FOR SELECT * FROM cip.college;
RETURN (ref_cursor);
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql

SELECT cip.function_1();
FETCH 3from mycursor;

Output:

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Procedure:
CREATE or replace procedure cip.ratChan(varchar,int)
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $$
BEGIN

UPDATE cip.college
SET rating = $2
WHERE col_id =$1;

COMMIT;
END;
$$;

CALL cip.ratChan('112301',2);

Output:

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Rating of clg with id ‘112301’ has changed from 4 to 2

Conclusion:

Hence, we learnt to implement functions, cursors and procedure queries

Post Lab Questions:

1. Does Storing Of Data In Stored Procedures Increase The Access Time?

Explain?

Ans: Data stored in stored procedures can be retrieved much faster than the data stored
in SQL database. Data can be precompiled and stored in Stored procedures. This
reduces the time gap between query and compiling as the data has been precompiled
and stored in the procedure.

2. Point out the wrong statement.

a) We should use cursor in all cases

b) A static cursor can move forward and backward direction

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c) A forward only cursor is the fastest cursor

d) All of the mentioned

3. Visit following virtual lab link, read theory and procedure provided and
solve pretest and post test questions. Support your answers with
screenshots.

Link:
http://vlabs.iitb.ac.in/vlabs-dev/labs/dblab/labs/exp3/index.php

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