Cursors are supported inside stored routines, triggers, and events. The syntax is as in embedded SQL. Cursors in MySQL have these properties:
Asensitive: The server may or may not make a copy of its result table
Read only: Not updatable
Nonscrollable: Can be traversed only in one direction and cannot skip rows
Cursors must be declared before declaring handlers. Variables and conditions must be declared before declaring either cursors or handlers. Variables should not have the same names as columns for reasons described in Section 12.7.3.4, “Scope and Resolution of Local Variables”.
Example:
CREATE PROCEDURE curdemo()
BEGIN
DECLARE done INT DEFAULT 0;
DECLARE a CHAR(16);
DECLARE b,c INT;
DECLARE cur1 CURSOR FOR SELECT id,data FROM test.t1;
DECLARE cur2 CURSOR FOR SELECT i FROM test.t2;
DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET done = 1;
OPEN cur1;
OPEN cur2;
read_loop: LOOP
FETCH cur1 INTO a, b;
FETCH cur2 INTO c;
IF done THEN
LEAVE read_loop;
END IF;
IF b < c THEN
INSERT INTO test.t3 VALUES (a,b);
ELSE
INSERT INTO test.t3 VALUES (a,c);
END IF;
END LOOP;
CLOSE cur1;
CLOSE cur2;
END;