A cursor is a special data type that represents a result set returned by a SELECT query statement. There are several notes about cursor you need to remember:

* Cursor data type can not be used to define table columns.

* Cursor data type is used on store procedures, functions, and triggers to help you loop through result sets returned by queries.

* Cursor data type can be used to define cursor variables.

* There are special Transact-SQL statements dedicated to work with cursors variables: OPEN, FETCH, CLOSE, and DEALLOCATE.

* Cursor variables can be passed as procedure or function parameters.

* There is a special function, CURSOR_STATUS(), for check cursor statuses.