Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals, The

Cursor Variables

Transact-SQL allows you to define variables that contain pointers to cursors via its cursor data type. The OPEN, FETCH, CLOSE, and DEALLOCATE commands can reference cursor variables as well as cursor names. You can set up variables within stored procedures that store cursor definitions, and you can return a cursor created by a stored procedure via an output parameter. Several of SQL Server's own procedures use this capability to return results to their callers in an efficient, modular fashion (e.g., sp_cursor_list, sp_describe_cursor, sp_fulltext_tables_cursor, and so on). Note that you can't pass a cursor via an input parameter into a procedure—you can only return cursors via output parameters. You also cannot define table columns ...