CURSORS NOT ALWAYS BEST CHOICE FOR DATA ACCESS V2K

Many people use cursors for accessing data one row at a time. While
cursors are useful, they also are resource intensive. Cursors are an 
Indexed
Sequential Access Method (ISAM) method of accessing data because all 
the
processing is done row by row. This method of accessing data is slow 
and
inefficient.

SQL Server is a set-based processing engine. By taking advantage of
joining data together (set-based), you avoid the resource-intensive 
methods
of handling data one row at a time.

To use SQL Server efficiently, you must begin to think of data in 
groups
or sets. For example, multiple rows can be grouped as one set.
Processing done by writing to this method improves overall performance.

Cursors are not all bad. Sometimes, you just have to have them, but try
to consider alternatives before automatically using them.

If you do use a cursor, remember to always clean up with the DEALLOCATE
statement to free up the resources, such as memory structures, that the
cursor has acquired.


----------------------------------------